


A Better Beginning

by jennserr



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Action/Adventure, Canon-Typical Violence, Coming of Age, F/F, Family, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Siblings, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, slight AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-11-21
Packaged: 2018-11-17 03:53:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11267394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennserr/pseuds/jennserr
Summary: The Andromeda Initiative promised a new future for humanity in a new galaxy, but surely they can't have meant this. From the moment Kate Ryder wakes from cryo stasis, things keep going from bad to worse. With her brother in a coma, her father dead, her older sister an untrained Pathfinder, and nowhere for humanity to go, how much hope can there be for a bright future? But in this coming-of-age story, the future isn't always decided by large, monumental occasions; it's forged in the day to day life of people, like the crew of the Tempest, who dream of a brighter tomorrow, together.[[on hiatus]]





	1. Prologue: Hyperion

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah this is my first attempt at Mass Effect fanfiction and I'm gonna try and keep it as close to the game's story while having it make sense for there to be a second Ryder around. Fair warning that updates might take a little bit, as I'm in school and also attempting to write each main mission as well as adding in my own subplots and character interactions from a different perspective. Anyways, here it is!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (chapter currently under reconstruction)

_Every great moment in our history began with a dream. Each bold leap forward was achieved by those willing to do anything to attain it. We are, all of us, leaving behind families, homes…the very birthplace of our species. Some, for discovery, to see the unknown. Others, for a new start. But today, whatever our reasons, we take the first steps toward a new future for humanity. Today, we begin to make our dream, reality._

* * *

It’s like a blink; a ponderously slow blink. One second, I’m looking at my family as I’m being sealed into a pod. The next, when I open my eyes, I’m staring up at my older sister’s face, a face clouded by rare concern. I gasp and take a deep, shuddering breath, sitting up quickly, and everything comes rushing back to me. The stasis pods. The Andromeda Initiative. The Pathfinder mission.

The concern I had first seen written across Sara’s features quickly transforms into relief as she enters my vision again, and she gives me a small smile when she catches my eyes. “Hey, sis,” she says softly, the first words I’ve heard in over 600 years.

“Hey yourself,” I respond just as quietly. Then am sent into a coughing fit as my body catches up with my brain in waking up. I lean forward, bracing a hand on one knee as my lungs spasm in my chest.

“Take it easy, kid,” a gentle, ever so slightly gravelly voice says. “Take some deep breaths. Give your body time to properly wake up.” I manage to glance up just enough to see a man with dark skin and close-cropped dark hair, dressed in Initiative white-and-blues. One of the cryo technicians, then.

“Would be easier to wake up if I had some coffee,” I reply hoarsely, getting a slight chuckle out of Sara. It feels like my throat has turned into the wastelands of Techunka while I slept.

“Ryder, Katelin, Weapons Specialist, Pathfinder Mission Team,” a third voice adds. A woman with a melodic voice and dark hair stopping just past her olive-toned chin, dressed in a similar uniform as the man.

“Just Kate,” I answer.

“Darn, I was hoping they’d give me a new sister when we woke up.” Sara taps me softly on the shoulder with a closed fist. “Someone who’ll actually listen to their big sis every once in awhile.”

“Great, just what we need,” the female technician sighs. “Yet another Ryder.”

I stick my tongue out at my sister. “You know you love me. Besides, what would you do without me, huh? Tease Scott all by yourself?”

I expect her to smirk, deny it, say something witty in reply as Scott would walk up and ask if his sisters are talking shit about him again, but instead, all traces of mirth disappear from her face, and she looks away with a sigh. Her shoulders sag, as if the weight of the universe has just settled on them.

“What? What’s wrong?” I look around slowly. “Where’s Scott?”

Silence stretches between us. I realize that she hasn’t left my side since I woke up, and that I haven’t seen Scott or Dad at all. The two technicians who have been hovering around me--somehow less so than Sara has, I realize--look at each other. “We’ll let you girls talk,” the woman says, then walks away down down the cryo bay, the man trailing behind her.

“...Sara, what’s going on?”

“Scott…” Sara gulps visibly and wets her lips, refusing to meet my eyes. “Something happened to the Ark just as they were waking Scott up. We don’t know what it was yet, but...His pod was damaged. They couldn’t wake him up, and they don’t know if they’ll ever be able to.”

I try to speak, but nothing comes out as I process what my sister just said. A hole opens up in my chest, a tightness right next to the emptiness that never left after Mom died. _This can’t be it. We just arrived in Andromeda, for fucks sake, Scott can’t just.._

She seems to know what I’m thinking, as she finally meets my eyes and says, “But he’s still okay. Medically, anyways. Still living and everything.”

I breathe a deep, shaky sigh of relief. _At least we won’t lose him, too. He’ll have a chance to see our new home._ “He always was a fighter,” I murmur.

“And he always will be.” She sits down beside me on my left, putting a comforting arm around my shoulders and giving my right a squeeze. “Doctor T’Perro says they’ll need to keep him in a coma for now though, at least until his body regains consciousness naturally. Or something like that.” She gives my right shoulder another squeeze and leans her head against mine. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispers. “I couldn’t handle losing Scott _and_ you on the same day.”

I wrap my left arm around her and pull her into a side hug and chuckle humorlessly. “As if you could get rid of me that easily.” Tears threaten to form in the corners of my eyes, and I squeeze them tight to shut them out.

Sara laughs faintly, a slight tremor in her voice, then slowly stands, grabbing hold of my left arm at the elbow and pulling me up with her. “We should probably get you your omni-tool, and checked out by a doc. Dad wants the team mission-ready within the hour, and he wants us up on the bridge.” She snorts and glances over her shoulder with her trademark smirk. “Would _hate_ to keep him waiting.”

I follow her on unsteady legs as she leads me out of the stasis area into the brightly-lit cryo bay. “Eh, he’s waited 600 years. I’m sure a few minutes won’t hurt.”

Someone presses a mug of something warm into my hands while Sara waves over a man in a red and white uniform—whom I soon recognize as Harry Carlyle, a man who’d ridden in our shuttle to the Hyperion back in the Sol system—as I sit down on the nearest exam table. Once she’s sure he’s on his way over, Sara spares me one last glance, then walks down the bay to stand beside a woman with short blonde hair styled in an undercut by the doors. _Cora_ , I recall. Dad’s second-in-command. I take a sip of the warm brew and sigh in contentment as the familiar flavour of coffee floods my mouth.

“Heya, kid,” Harry starts with, running a scanner over me. I give him the courtesy of setting the mug aside while he does so. “Look here.” He holds up a finger. “How do you feel?”

I follow his finger with my gaze as he moves it around, still scanning me. “Like I had one too many drinks last night.”

He shakes his head with a knowing smile. “That’s stasis for you. It should pass soon. Faster, if you get some liquids into you.” He stops scanning and moves over to a terminal beside the exam table. “Just gotta test your implants before you can get going.”

“Implants?”

“Your hormone implant, and SAM. SAM, are you monitoring?”

“Yes, Doctor Carlyle. The neural implant is functioning properly. Good morning, Kate. Are you feeling well?” says a monotone digital voice, seeming to both come from my omni-tool as well as inside my head, creating the barest of echos.

“As well as can be expected, I guess,” I reply. I reach again for the coffee and take a long pull of it, then ask, “Why do you need to check them both?”

Harry looks over at me from his terminal. “Well, after being in stasis, we need to make sure you’re still connected to SAM. As for your hormone implant, well, nobody really knows how stasis would have affected it. SAM, can you check to make sure it still works?”

There is the briefest of pauses, then SAM speaks up again. “Affirmative. The hormone implant in Kate’s thyroid has not been affected in any way by being in stasis. It continues functioning as intended.”

I sigh in relief and sag forward onto my knees. “First good news I’ve heard all day.”

“Hopefully not the only good news,” Harry comments. “Hear we’re putting boots on the ground soon.” I hear him tapping on his omni-tool for a moment, then he moves to stand in front of me, a warm smile on his face. “All done. You’re good to go, Kate.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it,” the doctor affirms. “That coffee of yours is specially designed to get you guys wide awake in only a few minutes if need be, even if you were just thawed. Gets the brain and body back up to normal function faster than it would otherwise.”

“And it tastes pretty good.” To emphasize the point, I finish off most of it in one go, then set the mug aside in the absence of anywhere better to put it.

He chuckles. “That too.”

I stand stiffly. “Thanks, Doc.” A pause. “Will Scott be okay?”

“We’ll do our best to make sure he is,” he replies somberly, then nods toward the door. “You should probably get going. Sister’s waiting for you.” As if she can hear him from across the room, Sara lifts her head to look at me expectantly. Cora follows suit soon after, an amused half-smile playing across her lips.

 _Cora_. When last I had met her, it had been on the shuttle as we left Earth to board the Hyperion. She and Harry had both ridden in the same shuttle as the Ryder clan, and she had spent a great deal of time talking the ear off anyone who would listen about how excited she was to "boldly go where no man or woman has gone before," how she couldn't wait to be exploring a new galaxy at our sides. Sara tried to make a pass at her, saying something along the lines of "I'd go anywhere just to be at your side," but it was lost in Cora's fervour for the journey ahead. Scott and I teased her mercilessly about it.

I spare a glance at the cryo pod in the corner of the room that I can only assume is his as I walk down the bay. More than any of us, Scott empathized with Cora the most. Once he and Sara had finished Basic for the Alliance military, he'd been posted to the Charon Mass Relay, while Sara had been assigned to accompanying a Prothean dig team. He had an important job, to be sure, but also "a front row seat to everyone else going off to fortune and glory" as he put it. A rather inglorious job for an N2 who was recognized as "a team player and a natural leader" by the Alliance. And when Dad was disgraced? Any chance Scott had of making a career for himself in the military was destroyed. His dreams of adventure were effectively over.

Until we learned of the Andromeda Initiative. "A new beginning, for all of us," he'd said optimistically. "A fresh start with a clean slate." He didn't say it, but he craved the adventure the Initiative promised as much as, if not more than, the idea of starting over.

My brother had admitted to me, once, that he was jealous of Sara and I; of how Sara was out getting her hands dirty in Prothean dig sites, discovering new things about our galaxy’s past, and even of me for the relative freedom that came with my work. I had told him that the Alliance kept a tight leash on me because of my work in weapons design, wanting to make sure I wasn’t a threat to them and didn’t follow in my dad’s footsteps, but he wasn’t convinced.

I spare a glance at his cryo pod as I walk down the bay. _The adventure he always dreamt of having, and he won’t even get to experience it._ I shake my head. No time for those kinds of thoughts now. Focus on the future; the future of our species.

As I approach my sister, I overhear one of the pathfinder team members conversing with a doctor. “Gravity loss means something tripped the generators,” he says, and I nearly pause mid-step. _Gravity loss? What happened before I woke up? Is that what’s responsible for Scott?_

“You ready?” Cora asks as I near. She stands at parade rest with her hands folded behind her back, looking for all the world like she was born ready for a mission of this magnitude. I suppose she was. I blink to shake myself out of my thoughts, then nod, and with a nod from Sara, the three of us step through the cryo bay doors—

Right into an explosion from the power conduit that keeps the cryo bay running.

The floor rocks beneath us as orange flames and smoke shoot out from the side of the left-hand conduit, crew members scrambling for cover and some being knocked off their feet as an alarm sounds overhead. Smoke pours out of the machine, and electricity arcs from the tubes in the center.

“Hey! Up here!” A female engineer appears on top of the conduit and waves to get people’s attention. “Whatever hit the ark fried everything! We have to balance the power load, or it could explode!”

“But we don’t know where the fault is!” exclaims a male engineer as he furiously types on the console attached to the conduit. His eyes are wild, frantic.

“The Ryders could find it,” Cora interjects suddenly, “they have scanners!” She turns to face me and my sister. “Quick, use it to locate the fault!”

Sara and I look at each other and nod. “On it!”

“I’ll try to get readings on the second conduit,” Cora adds, moving the other side of the room.

“Get on that,” the engineer encourages, “I’ll override the safeties.”

Sara quickly ascends the stairs while I rush over to the panicked engineer at the console. Almost in unison, my sister and I raise our left arms and activate the scanner in our omni-tools. I move my scanner across the sparking tubes in front of me, while she does the same at the top of the stairs, directing her scanner through the side of the conduit. I get a read on the axial coupling above the tubes, but it checks out as functional. SAM confirms it, stating “There’s no indication of a fault in this component.”

“Keep looking!” Cora calls from the other conduit.

“Relay 2-C shows damage from a temperature spike,” SAM states suddenly.

“Found it!” Sara adds from above. “Bad relay!”

The panicking engineer beside me looks up at her expectantly. “Ryder! Can you go reset it?”

There’s a tense moment of silence as my sister works, then she declares, “There! It’s reset!”

“That should do it! Rerouting the power now!”

A steadily increasing hum emanates from the conduit, and the smoke slowly clears.

“The grid’s recovering,” a crew member announces.

“It’s working!” another shouts.

“Readings are in the green!”

“Thank god. That could’ve been the end of everyone in the cryo bay.”

We all breathe a collective sigh of relief as the system stabilizes. I look up at my sister, and her face says what I’m also thinking. _That’s the second time today we nearly lost Scott._

“Good job, Ryder,” Cora comments as she approaches Sara. “Now we can get to the tram.” She glances over at me and tips her head in a “come along” gesture.

The short hallway leading to the tram looks just as put-together as everything else I’ve seen on the ark so far. Which is to say, not very. There are long unrolled coils of thick wiring scattered across the floor and multiple crates upended and spilling their contents. One man is frantically waving his scanner at a smoking terminal, while another is tending to a woman in the white-and-reds of a medical officer who is lying on the ground, her left leg bent at an awkward and most likely painful angle. I grimace in sympathy as we pass.

Cora speaks up as we approach the tram. “That was close. Barely in Andromeda, and we’re already scrambling.”

“The adventure begins,” my sister sighs.

“Not sure Dad’ll see it that way,” I comment dryly.

We enter the tram, which to my surprise isn’t empty. Two people sit at one end of the train on adjacent benches; a woman in a grey uniform and a ponytail in the same style as Sara’s, and a man with short, curly hair and dark skin in a dark grey uniform with red accents. Both face away from our little group.

“Go ahead and take us to the bridge,” Cora instructs Sara once we’re all inside, and soon the tram is speeding away from the cryo bay with a gentle whir.

* * *

The ride to the bridge is fairly uneventful. For the most part, we ride in silence, with the occasional speculation on what we would find out here in Andromeda, such as:

“You think there’ll be aliens?” Sara wonders aloud.

“Technically, _we_ would be the aliens,” I comment.

“Well, yeah,” she makes a noncommittal gesture. “But I mean, do you think there’ll be sentient life?”

Cora snorts. “I hope not. Wouldn’t want to feel like invaders in a new galaxy.”

“But think of how cool it’d be, learning an entirely new culture that nobody else from the Milky Way has ever experienced!” My sister’s eyes seem to shine as she imagines the uncovered mysteries of our new home. “Who knows, maybe there’s an intergalactic union of species, all working together like everyone back at the Citadel!”

“Yeah, but, what if they’re all fighting each other?” I speculate. “What if we arrived in the middle of a massive war?”

“And that’s assuming there’s even _one_ sentient, spacefaring species out here, let alone more,” Cora adds. “For all we know, Heleus could be completely devoid of anything other than primitive animals. Long range scans showed that there were worlds here that _could_ support life, not they were already doing so.”

Sara stands tall, balling her hands into fists and putting them on her hips, striking a pose she probably thinks is heroic. “Then it’s our job as the Pathfinder team to, uh, find them.” A heroic pose that falters as quickly as her words do. I can’t help but giggle at the sight. “Just you watch, Kate.” She _heroically_ points a finger at me. “We’re gonna make Scott proud. Tell him all about how we conquered a new galaxy just for him.”

That only makes me giggle more. “Yeah, yeah, sure,” I say in between fits. “I’ll also be sure to tell him how many Andromeda aliens you try and fail to bang. I’m betting it’ll be over 20 by the end of the month.”

Cora barely stifles a laugh with her hand as my sister’s face turns a healthy red and she splutters, “H-hey, for all we know, there uh, there might not be any aliens in Heleus!”

The lieutenant arches an elegant eyebrow, shaking with barely controlled mirth. “Weren’t you the one just yakking on about ‘What if there were sentient species out here?’ Makes me wonder why you’re so interested in knowing...”

“You shuddup!”

“That’s no way to talk to a superior officer, sis.”

“You’re not helping!”

It’s good to know that even after six hundred odd years, some things never change.

* * *

The scene as we arrive on the bridge is frantic, polar opposite to our jovial ride up to it; right as we cross the threshold onto the bridge, a crewman nearly bowls me over as he runs to a console.

“Helm control, report!” The man who nearly ran me over calls.

A man working at the same console responds. “We’re drifting!” He darts over to another console nearby, eyes glued to the screens. “Flight controls aren’t responding!” The crewman runs across the bridge towards yet another console, his path taking him right by the Captain.

“First priority is stopping these outages.” Captain Dunn orders. She barely raises her voice, yet her command rings out across the room with authority.

“Mainline power’s been knocked out! We’re on reserves, Captain! They won’t last!”

It’s then, as I’m looking towards the Captain where she stands at the helm of our ship, that I finally see it.

Visible out the front viewport of the bridge of Ark Hyperion is a swirling mass of...dark energy, for lack of better description, that glows from within with chaotic orange light. I watch, a chill running down my spine, as an explosion of sorts flares up in a cluster of energy directly ahead of the Hyperion. The light travels outward along several tendrils for a ways, then halts its advance and dims slightly. I can only watch in dread as the Ark drifts through the mass.

I feel a light bump at my left shoulder and turn to see my sister standing there, her eyes reflecting the swirling energy outside the ship. She looks over at me, and I see in her eyes the same worry I had seen in my first moments in Andromeda. It’s not hard to guess that we’re thinking the exact same thing. _Could this be it? Could the Initiative be doomed before it even starts?_

“What’s our position?” We both turn our gaze forward again when we hear our dad’s deep, gravelly voice, and find him walking up behind the Captain to stand on her right.

A crewwoman responds from below. “Unknown--we lost telemetry!” _Not good._

“SAM, we need eyes out there,” Ryder senior calmly commands. He gazes stoically out the viewport, looking for all the world oblivious to the danger the ship is in.

Almost immediately, SAM’s digital voice sounds through the tense air. “Attempting to adjust sensor array.” _Definitely not good._

“Alec, please…” Captain Dunn turns to my dad. ”You may be Pathfinder, but this is my ship.” Her words are barbed, yet also desperate.

Dad can sense it too. He turns to face her, his eyes hardening. “Captain, the protocol’s clear: in the absence of communication with the Nexus or the other arks, we proceed to our appointed golden world. _Solid ground_ ,” he emphasizes.

“If it’s even out there!” The Captain gestures helplessly. “Nobody said anything about running into an energy cloud--and that’s just a wild guess what we hit.”

Her words ring with truth, and dad knows it. Everyone does. When we set out to Andromeda, we had only the barest of ideas of what we were getting into. We were leaping into the unknown with nothing but our wits and an old compass named Ryder.

The energy cloud flares orange.

“Alec, I need to assess the damage. Stop the bleeding.” The Captain’s tone is somber. “We’ve got twenty thousand people asleep on this ship… Let’s give them a chance to wake up.”

“Can you blame her?” Cora comments.

“My father’s got a point, though,” Sara replies. “Solid ground’s sounding pretty good now.”

“Yeah, but-” “I’d have to agree-” Cora and I start simultaneously, only to receive a rebuke from Dad.

“‘Pretty good’ isn’t good enough.” His steely gaze flickers between us.

Sara gulps audibly and stands stiffly at attention, much in the way Cora usually does. “Yes, sir.”

He gives us one last hard look, then turns forward again as the crewwoman from before announces, “We’re coming through.”

We all watch in stunned silence as the Hyperion emerges into an open pocket of space among the energy, allowing us our first true glimpse of Andromeda. Dunn’s speaks what I’m sure everyone on the bridge is thinking when she says, “My god. Is that our golden world?”

There, finally visible out the large viewport, is a ringed planet, the first new planet in this new galaxy…And it looks like it’s been through hell. Part of the planet that faces sunward looks habitable; turquoise oceans of some kind encompassing a large landmass dotted by sparse greens and yellows. Clouds are visible, obscuring parts of the planet from view, and I even spot a storm system near the north pole--or, what I assume is the north pole. At first glance, it does indeed look like our golden world; our first potential site of human colonization. But after taking a second glance at the planet below, my heart clenches. Half of the planet is covered by a dark mass, almost certainly made of the same stuff that surrounds the Hyperion.

“That’s Habitat 7,” Dad says. He gestures towards the planet below. “‘New Earth,’ if we’re lucky.”

He starts to move around the central control console, and Cora steps forward in his absence to stand with the Captain. Sara follows a few paces behind and, after a few more seconds, so do I, standing on Cora’s right.

“All of our long-range scans told us it was in the green zone,” the Pathfinder says as he approaches a holo projector that stands in the middle of the bridge. “Perfect for human settlement.” He pulls up a holo of the planet on the projector and spins it around with one hand. The holo expands in size as soon as he releases it, and almost seems to overlay the planet it’s supposed to be.

 “It doesn’t even look the same,” Cora comments. She sounds so crestfallen.

 “She’s right,” I admit. “It looks pretty dicey from here. Are we sure about those scans?”

 “We don’t know how bad it is yet,” Sara says. Ever the optimist. “Still seems like it’s our best shot.”

 “Maybe. There’s just a lot on the line.” Captain Dunn looks apprehensive, and I can’t blame her. I can’t imagine what she must be going through; being woken up to begin colonizing a new galaxy, only to have everything blow up in your face. Figuratively and literally.

“Things can change. It’s been six hundred years.” Dad looks back towards the holo. “SAM?”

“The energy from the phenomenon is dampening our sensors. Planetary conditions are unknown.”

There is a pregnant moment of silence as we all absorb the implications of what SAM has just said. Ryder senior is the first to break the silence.

 “We’re marooned.” The Pathfinder looks around the room, taking everything in. “Twenty thousand souls adrift at sea. And when the power runs out and stays out…” Without turning, he points towards the planet behind us. I can feel his gaze boring into us. “We need to know if that’s safe harbor.”

 “And if it’s not?” the captain asks warily.

 “As Pathfinder, it will be my job to find an alternative. It’s what we trained for. But if this goes well... “ Dad points towards the holo of the planet. “...we’re already home,” he finishes reverently.

 “Alright,” Dunn relents. “Just make it quick.”

 Dad doesn’t waste a second, immediately walking away towards the tram station. “Harper, the rest of the team should be awake by now. Have them spin up two shuttles. Planetfall in thirty.”

 “Yes, sir.” Cora turns to follow the Pathfinder.

 “Kate, you too,” he calls over his shoulder continues towards the tram.

 “Right away.” I spare a glance at Sara as I turn to go, but find her already engaged in conversation with the Captain, and without further ado I walk swiftly away.

* * *

 I catch up with my father as he approaches the tram station, Cora not far behind him.

“You needed to speak with me, sir?”

“What do you remember about First Contact Protocol, Kate?”

I blink. “I’m sorry?”

He sighs and turns a disapproving gaze on me. Cora is the one who answers him, quoting from memory, “The Andromeda Initiative holds the principles of peace and cooperation among our highest ideals. Aggressive action against extraterrestrials is only permitted when hostile intent is clearly demonstrated and Pathfinder team members are at obvious risk or injury of death.”

The Pathfinder gives his Second a hint of a smile. “Good. Glad to know at least someone’s payed attention.”

I purse my lips and swallow words I know I should not say. “Why? Are you expecting something?”

The tram doors open with a pneumatic hiss. “It’s our job to expect the unexpected,” is his cryptic response. “When you don’t know what to be prepared for, be prepared for everything” He steps into the tram, alone, then turns back to us. “Thirty minutes, Harper. Make sure _everyone_ has the necessary gear.”

“Yes, sir.”

And with that, the doors seal us off from him, and the tram whizzes away.

“Well that was weird,” Sara retorts. I startle slightly at how close her voice is; I didn’t even notice her approach.

“You know how dad is.” I shake my head. “Our weird is his normal. Best not to dwell too much on it.”

We only have to wait a moment before another tram can arrive, and from there, it’s a straight shot to the mission loadout.

* * *

“You really call that ‘armor’?”

“It suits my skillset, and it’s easier to move in,” Cora replies stiffly.

I just stare, aghast, at the chest piece that the Lieutenant is in the process of putting on. If it could even be called that. The thing can’t be more than a few millimeters thick, and looks to be made of a thin leather-like material. Compared to what my sister and I are strapping on, it might as well be a second skin. And what was with the boob cups?

“It’s just...it’s impractical! What if there’s a tear in the suit?”

My sister just shrugs. “Whatever works for you, I guess. You seem to know what you’re doing.”

I shake my head in exasperation and let out a sigh. _This is going to be a long day._ I reach a hand behind my back and fumble around with where I’m certain the left clasp for my own chest piece is supposed to go.

“Need help with that?” Sara offers. _Of course_ she  _has no trouble putting it on._

“I got this,” I grunt.

I don’t got this.

“....Okay. I, uh, might need a hand here.”

She holds out one of her gloves, completely stone-faced.

I look at the proffered piece of armor, then at my supposedly more mature older sister. Her mask slips and she fails to stifle a snicker. “Ha, ha. You’re hilarious. Now can you put that thing down and actually help me?”

“Sorry, sorry, I just couldn’t resist.” She sets the arm piece down and walks over to me.

“No you’re not.”

There’s a tug at my back, then a _click_ as she snaps the connector into place. “Yeah, you’re right.” I can practically hear the cocky smirk in her voice.

I roll my shoulders, not used to the feel of the jumpsuit and armor. Even during my service in the Alliance, I was rarely required to wear them; I wasn’t seeing combat, after all. “It’s a little tight across the chest.”

“It’s supposed to be. Don’t want you falling out of it.” My sister gives me a playful nudge. “Seriously, you should really put on some muscle again. You'd think our training would have helped.”

Cora chuckles.

Having finished helping me, Sara returns to her locker and picks up her gloves. She slides them both on swiftly, then opens her locker. “Scott’s going to hate that he missed this,” she remarks. There’s a touch of longing in her voice.

“Are all the Ryder’s adrenaline junkies?” Cora asks.

Sara gets a far-off look in her eyes. “I guess it’s in our blood. I was born a minute ahead of him. I never let him forget it.” God, she looks so self-satisfied.

“You never let _any_ one forget it,” I retort. My sister impudently sticks her tongue out at me and shakes her head the tiniest bit by way of response.

Cora looks around the armory for a second before turning her gaze on me, then Sara. “Don’t worry. I’m sure Scott will pull through.” The lieutenant strolls over to stand by my sister.

“Yeah, and when he does, I’m sure he’ll want to hear stories.”

“So,” Cora says as she closes Sara’s locker, “let’s get out there and find him one.”

I finish buckling my arm pieces in place with a satisfying _click_ and meet their eyes. “Couldn’t have said it better myself. All set?”

Cora smiles at me. “Not quite. You’ll want to get your helmet. And maybe stop at the good luck rock before we go.”

“The what?” Sara and I both inquire.

“It’s an old superstition of your dad’s,” Cora explains, without really explaining anything.

Sara looks at me in confusion, and I shrug, feeling just as lost. “You know how dad is.”

I close the door to my now-empty locker unhurriedly. _Wish they’d let me bring one of my babies. Then I’d be able to hold my own down there._ The mission beckons, as does the EVA helmet that rests on a shelving unit on the other side of the armory.

Sara, on the other hand, has other priorities.

“Good luck rock, huh?”

“Your dad was mountain climbing back on Earth,” Cora answers. “It caught him from falling. Way things are going today, we’ll need any luck we can get.”

“Yeah.”

I don’t say anything as I retrieve my helmet, but I can’t help but agree with Cora. Only our first official day in Andromeda, and the shit has already hit the fan in the most spectacular and messy way possible. Nothing is going according to plan.

Then again, how much help would plans be, anyways? Cora seems to be thinking the same thing, as she says, more to herself than anyone, “We scanned Andromeda. Everything was in the clear. How could things change like this?” _A lot can change in 600 odd years,_ I think. _Nobody could have prepared for this. Hell, I’m sure as fuck not prepared for this._

As I pick up my helmet, my eye catches a mirror mounted to the wall above the shelving unit. I pause. My reflection stares back at me, only it’s not me. The girl, no, the _woman_  in the mirror looks badass and ready for anything in a polished Initiative hardsuit, icy grey eyes filled with determination gazing back at me from under dark bangs. But in reality…I don’t think I’ve ever been more nervous than I am right now.

“You look just like mom.” Sara’s reflection joins mine in the mirror as she approaches me. I notice again how dissimilar we are; her skin is a shade or two lighter than mine, closer to dad’s colour, and she stands just about six centimeters below me (I started outgrowing her when I hit a growth spurt at 13. Boy was she upset that both of her younger siblings were taller than her). Even our hair is different. Sara keeps her auburn hair in a ponytail most of the time, but it comes down almost to the bottom of her shoulder blades when she lets it out, while mine is more of a dark brown bordering on black, that I usually keep just above shoulder length.

Now that she mentions it, though, I can see what she means. Still… “You calling me old?”

She grins and nudges me with her shoulder. “Giving you a compliment, dork. She was beautiful and headstrong, and so are you. You’ve grown a lot, little sister.” She reaches a hand up to ruffle my hair, and I duck my head to escape. “And to think, you’re only six hundred and twenty years old. Imagine what you’ll be like when you’re my age.”

I brush her off. “You’re only a year and a half older than me, jerk.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

I groan. Sara laughs.

Cora’s voice interrupts us. “Hey, you too done goofing off yet, or should I tell the Pathfinder we’re leaving without you?”

Sara waves a hand at her. “No, no, we’re ready.”

“The Pathfinder is now requiring sidearms,” SAM announces. “I’ve opened the armaments locker.”

Sara and I look at each other uncertainly. “Are we expecting trouble, SAM?”

“A precaution,” he states. “Please arm yourselves, Ryders.”

The memory of my conversation with Dad as we left the bridge plays in my head. _It’s our job to expect the unexpected. Make sure_ everyone _has the necessary gear._

 _Would be a lot easier if I’d been allowed to bring my personal gear on board,_ I think bitterly. _But nooo, only approved Initiative equipment is allowed._

I follow my sister as she walks over to the small weapons loadout station that I’m fairly certain wasn’t open a minute ago. Sara picks up an M-3 Predator, while I opt for one of the M-8 Avengers stowed further back. I snag a number of thermal clips and stow them in pouches on my belt that are clearly designated for just this purpose. _What I would give to have one of the old M-7s._

I catch Sara staring at the thermal clips, no doubt perplexed by the sheer number I’m now carrying. “Better safe than sorry,” I explain.

“You never know.” At least Cora agrees with me. Kind of. “Now let’s get to the shuttles.”

Almost as if on cue, Dad’s voice crackles over the comms system. “Harper and Ryders, report to hangar bay two.”

I swing my rifle over my shoulder and secure it to the back of my suit with a magnetic _clack_ and head towards the armory doors, following Sara. _I still can’t believe I’m actually doing this._

“Hang in there, Scott,” she whispers as she passes his locker. I glance at it as I pass by. _He should be the one going out there, not me._ I shake my head. No time for “what-ifs” now.

Cora chuckles as we approach.“So, just another boring day at the office, huh?”

Sara shrugs. “Well, you know, I run into giant space cloud nebulas all the time.” I roll my eyes.

“Keeps us on our toes,” Cora grants. “I always wondered what it was like when explorers crossed the ocean.” Cora’s eyes seem to sparkle at the thought. “Nothing but stars and dead reckoning to guide them.”

“And a map that said ‘here be dragons’,” I add.

“Well, if they made it, we can too. And maybe see a dragon along the way.”

“Never know.” Sara grins. “Let’s keep an eye out.”

Cora smirks. “And our distance.”

“Of course _you_ would want to find a dragon,” I taunt, poking my sister in the side. “Would you ask it to dinner first, or get straight to the point?”

Sara’s cheeks flush, and she splutters. “One time! It was one time! And it was made of silicon! Just let it go already!”

The Lieutenant and I laugh at my sister’s embarrassment. “On that note,” she declares after a moment, “time to get to the shuttle.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and yes, that was a Bad Dragon reference at the end.


	2. First Few Faltering Steps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pathfinder team prepares to embark on their mission to investigate the surface of Habitat-7. 
> 
> Things don't exactly go as they had hoped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And so the first official mission of the game begins. I'm gonna try and spread it out over two chapters, but more than likely it'll end up going for three before I finish the mission. Prepare for an increasing amount of freeform writing in the coming chapters.
> 
> Somehow this ended up a good 1500 words longer than I intended, but I doubt you'll find that to be a problem.
> 
> (chapter currently under reconstruction)

The levity of the armory carries with us as we board a tram to the hangar, but it isn’t to last. It’s when Cora makes a crack about how Sara’s legs must spread wider than an Asari maiden’s--bringing a scarlet blush to my sister’s cheeks--that I sober up; I turn slightly to smile at Scott, a question on the tip of my tongue of whether we should tell the Lieutenant about one of the (many) times we’d caught our sister in a rather compromising position...only to find a blank space where he should be standing. And just like that, all liveliness drains from me, leaving me as hollow as I had felt when I first learned of Scott’s fate.

“Okay, see, you’ve only heard second-hand accounts, at best, from my little sister; a person who will take any and every opportunity to embarrass her older sister, even if it means embellishing certain details.”

“I notice you’re not denying anything.”

“Rock and a hard place, Cora! If I deny it, you’ll think that I’m just lying to save face, but if I say it’s true, then you’ll think I’m a tramp. No matter which way you look at it, there’s no way I win!” She huffs in exasperation. “Happy now, Kate?”

I smile, but it doesn’t reach my eyes, and I just kind of stare past my sister.

She picks up on it awfully quick. “Kate? Something up?”

“Just…” I sigh and look down at my boots. “It’s not the same. Without Scott.”

“I know,” Sara says softly. “Believe me, I know. It...it feels like half of me is missing.”

“Hey.” A hand comes to rest on my shoulder, reassuring and gentle, and I look up into golden eyes and hair. “If there’s anything I know about Ryders--” she turns to look at my sister-- “it’s that you’re a tough bunch to knock down. This won’t stop you. If anything, use this; do it for Scott.”

I nod slightly. “Yeah.” I heave a sigh. “It’s just...we trained together for this, the three of us. Trained to work as a unit, all watching each other’s backs. Keeping each other safe. Even when we were light years apart, we were always there for each other.”

The hand on my shoulder squeezes reassuringly, and the owner of it gives me a smile. “Then I guess I’ll just have to be the one to keep you two alive. Shouldn’t be too hard,” she finishes with a smirk.

Sara makes a noise in the back of her throat. “You practice that in the mirror?”

“Three times a day for the year leading up to launch,” Cora fires back without missing a beat. “Can’t have your old man riding my ass for losing one of you out there.” The hand on my shoulder lifts, and the Lieutenant folds her arms behind her back. “Seriously though, I’ll be there for you two. Not just as your XO, but as your friend.”

“Getting ahead of ourselves, are we?”

How my sister can flirt in literally any situation, I’m sure I will never understand. 

* * *

For some reason, it takes me by surprise just how quiet the hangar bay is when we arrive. Logically, I know it’s because only a handful of people have been woken up, and barely any of them would be needed down here to help us prep for launch, but it’s still unnerving how every step echoes around the vast chamber. As we walk further in, we’re greeted by the sight of Dr. Carlyle squatting on the floor in front of some supply crates, looking very out of place in Initiative armor.

I’m not the only one to think it. “Doctor Carlyle,” Cora voices, “with everything going on, I’d think the ark needs you more than we do?”

Harry stands, wiping his hands on his sides as he does. “Pathfinder wants a medic on hand. And if that’s home down there, I’m happy to knock on the door.”

“What about Scott?” I ask before I can stop myself.

“Don’t worry, kid.” He gives me a sympathetic half-smile. “I’ve got my best doctor watching out for him. He’ll be fine with her.”

Someone squeezes my shoulder, and I turn to see Sara giving me the same small smile. It’s not as comforting as she probably thinks it is. “If it’s what we hope it is,” she says, beginning to walk away, “it’ll be one for the history books.” My sister turns to Harry. “You got a quote ready? ‘One small step…’?”

He chuckles and spreads his arms wide in a sort of hopeless gesture. “I’m pretty sure your dad will handle that honor.” He doubles back to pick up the crate he was digging through earlier, then stops mid-turn. “Oh, and Kate, I think Hayes wanted you for something.”

“What for?” I look at him in confusion, but he just shrugs, hefts the crate, and walks away.

I look at my sister and Cora, but they look just as confused as I feel. I tap my omni-tool. “Hayes? It’s Kate Ryder. You wanted to see me?”

“Good, you’re here!” Her voice crackles slightly over comms. “I’m on the other side of the shuttle. Come on over. Need your help with something.”

I glance towards my sister with a shrug, then start towards Hayes. “On my way,” I say.

As I round the shuttle, I spot a patch of bright red hair that can only belong to one person peeking out from behind a veritable wall of crates. “Hayes?”

“Down here!” she calls, the visible patch of hair bobbing slightly as she raises an arm and waves me over.

Puzzled, I make my way around the crates to find her squatting in front of three open cases. In one of them, I see a number of firearms, and in the others, thermal clips and ration packs. “Packing for an extended stay?” I ask, still looking down at the crates.

“Pathfinder wants us prepared for anything,” Hayes explains. “We don’t know what we’ll find down there, or how long we’ll be there. So he said, anyways.”

“But do we really need that much firepower?”

“Actually, that’s why I called you over. Needed a second opinion.” She finally turns to look me in the eye. “You _are_ the weapons specialist, after all.”

I survey the crate of firearms with new eyes, and bend down to get a closer look and sift through the weapons with my hands. “Well, for a team of ele-- ten, if we really want to be prepared… We’d best have two or three guns apiece, and a few extra in case they break or anything happens to them. So that’s twelve M-8s, thirteen M-3s, about five of the M-23s, and probably three of the Vipers. And that’s including what everybody’s already packing, so we won’t really need much more from here.” I consider snagging one of the aforementioned Vipers for my own use, but decide against it. _Only if we need to use them_ , I tell myself. “If we’re planning on being there a while, we’ll need as many thermal clips as we can carry. I’m sure everyone has good aim, but just to be on the safe side…” I sit back on my heels and look at Hayes, who is looking at me in awe, her mouth slightly agape.

“You figured all that out that fast?”

“It really wasn’t that hard,” I respond, rubbing the back of my neck. “You work with guns long enough, you learn what you need for missions. It doesn’t even really take a weapons specialist to figure it out; anyone who’s seen enough combat can tell you what’s needed.” 

“Well, I certainly couldn’t have.” She shakes her head slowly. “I would have just picked up the whole damn crate and called it good.”

I snort. “Yeah, I don’t think we need _that_ much firepower. Now c’mon, help me get these sorted out. And we’ll probably need some of those ration packs, too.”

It only takes us a few minutes to get the gear we need into their own crates. As we pick them up and start towards the shuttle again, Hayes speaks up. “Do you really think we’ll find anything down there? What if it turns out we don’t need all this?”

“What if we do?” I counter. I heft my crate to keep it from slipping out of my grasp. “Better to be over prepared than under prepared.”

“I guess.”

We load the supplies onto the shuttle, setting them next to the crate that I believe Harry was working on. _Don’t have to worry about medical supplies then_. I dust my hands off, give Hayes a smile, then exit the shuttle to stand with my sister, who is deep in conversation with the Lieutenant. I can’t catch what they’re saying, though, because it’s at that point that the Pathfinder calls out to us.

“All right, team, button it up. We leave in five.” Always straight to business with him.

“Sir,” I start. “We broke out the weapons as requested. Anything we should know about?” I catch Cora and Sara staring at me out of the corner of my eye.

“Seemed prudent, given the situation,” he explains. “We’ll be down a man with Scott out.” My heart clenches at his mentioning. Our father steps out of the shuttle and walks towards us. “I heard what happened,” he continues in a softer voice. “Your brother’s strong. He’ll make it.”

Sara and I glance at each other. I can barely even imagine how hard this is for her; Scott’s my brother as much as he is Sara’s, but he’s Sara’s twin, too. Their bond runs deep. “He better. Six hundred year nap, and he oversleeps?” Our sister tries to make light of the situation, but I can still hear the pain in her voice.

“You know him. Never was an early riser,” Dad attests. I notice Cora and the others nearby leave us alone. Dad gives us both a long, meaningful look. “Just don’t let it get to you. I need you two sharp.”

“Yes, sir,” we respond in unison.

He takes a step back, making as if to turn away, but stops. “Your mom would’ve been proud. Of all three of you.” Our father gives us a single, affirming nod, then turns and walks up to the shuttle.

The Pathfinder does an about-face once inside the shuttle and speaks out in a clear voice. “Okay team, listen up.” Each present member of the team gathers around us. “I chose each of you for the Pathfinder team, not just because you’re talented and passionate. But because you’re dreamers, like me. We dream of exploring the unknown, of finding the edge of the map--and then discovering what lies beyond. When people look back on this--and they will--they’ll remember we didn’t give up. We kept dreaming. That our first, few faltering steps in Andromeda were the beginning of everything they know.” The light of the nearby star glints off his armor, highlighting the N7 emblem emblazoned on his chestpiece. “We only get one chance to be first. So let’s go make history.” And with that, the Pathfinder moves farther into the shuttle, just as a second shuttle lands nearby. Cora and Harry trail close behind him, while Fisher and Greer head towards the other shuttle.

“Been waiting six hundred years for this,” a man with dark skin, dark hair, and a British accent says. He chucks Sara on the shoulder, grins at me, then heads towards the second.

My sister and I share a look as he leaves, and she walks over to me. “Be careful, okay?” she murmurs.

I smirk. “Always am.”

“That’s a lie and you know it,” she says, but at least it gets her to smile. Sara gazes around the hangar, then looks back at me. “See you down on the ground.”

I smile back at her, and the two of us go our separate ways; Sara, boarding the shuttle with the british guy, while I follow our father into the first shuttle. I glance back at her as the doors close, but she’s already beyond my sight.

“Ark Hyperion, this is Shuttle One, switching to manual guidance,” the Pathfinder announces from the cockpit. There’s a tremor as the engine rumbles into action, and soon we’re off the ground and heading out. 

“This is Shuttle Two, taking your lead,” replies the pilot of the other shuttle over comms. Kirkland, I think.

Captain Dunn’s voice crackles over the channel. “Good luck, Pathfinder team.”

* * *

“Turning to vector one-three-five,” Fisher announces on comms. Looking out through a side window, I see Shuttle Two banking around a tendril of the energy mass, and feel the G’s as our own shuttle makes a similar maneuver and pulls ahead.

“Navigation all green in your area,” a woman’s voice reports from the Hyperion. “Reading you five by five, Shuttle One.”

The Pathfinder replies, “Copy that. We’re on point.”

“Wow,” a British accent gasps over the comms channel, “will you look at that?” As the shuttle finishes its maneuver, the Hyperion comes into view outside the windows, and with it, the massive tendrils of the dark energy that surround it. It almost appears as if the ark is in a cage.

“Whatever it is,” I respond, “it stopped the Hyperion in its tracks.”

SAM attempts to clarify. “It appears to be an unstable mass of dark energy.”

“If you say so,” the British man acknowledges. _What was his name again? I could have sworn he mentioned it at some point. Did it start with an L? Larry? I can’t just ask him now, it’d be too awkward._

“Steer clear of it,” Dad orders. _As if it really needed to be said aloud._

The crisp shuttle air is thick with tension, and it’s not hard to guess why. It’s difficult to relax, though I try anyways. Breathe in. Hold it. Breathe out. Attempt to unclench buttcheeks. Breath in. Clench. Hold it. Breath out. Fail to unclench. Sigh. My entire body feels like a spring wound tight, every nerve on a razor’s edge. I haven’t felt this nervous since...and even then, it was an excited kind of nervous. Even getting ready for stasis was at least enjoyable. This...this feels like my stomach is going to fall out through my feet.

That feeling only gets worse when the shuttle starts shuddering. “We’re experiencing a velocity change of about fifteen percent,” Hayes reports from the cockpit, though Fisher’s comment of “Getting some chop here,” sums it up slightly better. Slightly.

“Copy that, Shuttle One,” the Hyperion acknowledges. “Working on compensating.”

“Gravity anomalies detected,” SAM announces.

I look over at Cora uneasily, but she’s just standing there, leaning against a bulkhead all cool and collected and unfazed. _Wish I could be that calm._

“Trying to even it out,” Hayes says.

“My stomach would appreciate it,” I call up to her. Over the comms channel, I hear Sara giggle.

As soon as the tremors cease, Hyperion flight control declares,“Bearings acceptable,” and barely a second later I feel the G’s press me backwards in my seat as Hayes opens up the throttle. The dark tendrils of energy rush by the windows, until at last we’re flying through the true void of space towards Habitat-7. The tension building in between my shoulders eases somewhat, and I breathe out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

“Don’t like flying?” I look up at Cora again when she speaks, and she’s wearing the barest of grins.

“I don’t mind flying, so long as I don’t have to worry about crashing.” Almost as if on cue, the shuttle trembles ever so slightly.

“You do realize that that’s all flying really is, right?”

I grimace. “Yeah, but usually you don’t have to deal with--” I gesture out the window in the general direction of the Hyperion and the energy mass surrounding it-- “that kind of….stuff.” I wave my arm for extra emphasis. “Most I’ve had to deal with has been tricky atmospheric conditions and the odd pirates.”

“You haven’t truly lived until you’ve flown a shuttle through a superhot nebula filled with space whales and the odd nuclear reaction,” Cora says.

“That’s because people who do generally end up very much not alive,” Harry counters. “And really, space whales?” He scoffs. “You can’t be serious.”

Cora merely smiles and arches an eyebrow. “You’d be surprised what you’ll find out in deep space.”

Before I can ask what she means by that, or even ask how much she’s travelled back in the Milky Way, Hayes announces, “Beginning our deceleration. Planet’s dead ahead.” Fisher responds with, “Roger, Shuttle One. Following your lead.”

I consider strapping in as the planet stretches before us, filling the view out every window. The shuttle rocks beneath us, nearly knocking me out of my seat. I seriously consider strapping in as It continues to shudder.

“Initiating atmospheric entry,” Hayes says. “Might want to hang on to something.”

The shuttle rocks again, and flames appear outside the windows. They quickly grow brighter and more intense as we fully breach the atmosphere until they’re all that’s visible. Sound penetrates from the exterior of the craft suddenly, and the noise of the flames and the air whipping by us quickly build to a thunderous roar that makes my teeth rattle. _Thank god for shielding_ , I think. _Can’t imagine what reentry must have been like back in the twentieth century._

I fumble around the sides of my seat in an attempt to find the straps, but with how much the shuttle is shaking, I only manage to grab onto one of them. All the while, I can hear someone’s voice crackling over comms, but it’s mostly static. “Flight….scramb…” I finally find the second strap and somehow manage to slip them both over my shoulders without a hitch. “...fighting me!” I bring the clasps together with a _snap_ and lean my head back against the seat, trying to ignore the rattling that doing so causes for my helmet.

Then, suddenly, it stops.

“Hyperion, we’re through,” Hayes reports as we begin to level off. “Now approaching upper troposphere.” And there, outside the windows, is Habitat-7.

Ominous grey clouds obscure much of the surface, but what can be seen is just as uninviting. A mountain range of sorts peeks through, a solid mass of light grey stone amidst the boiling fog. I quickly unclasp the straps I had only moments ago fastened and stand, joining Cora and staring out the window at what can only be described as desolate landscape. “Holy…”

“Shuttle Two,” she says, “are you seeing this?”

“Copy that,” my sister’s voice answers. “Doesn’t look like a golden world from here.”

Words fail me, and not in the good way.

Kirkland’s voice crackles. “Ionization levels are rising…”

“Stay on course to the landing zone,” Dad commands. “Keep it tight.”

SAM decides that now is the time to attempt to be helpful. “Oxygen levels are below minimum human requirements,” he states mechanically.

I look around incredulously. “Is this the right planet? I thought we had this all worked out.”

 

 _[A/N: I_ **_highly_ ** _recommend clicking_[[[this link]]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEmoNE9IfO0)  _or looking up 'Really Slow Motion - Eden's Prophecy'_ _and listening to the song as you finish reading this chapter, to better feel the emotional rollercoaster coming up]_

 

The shuttle trembles beneath us as it hits some turbulence. “Uh,” the british voice starts, “the mountains are floating.” I gaze out the window towards Shuttle Two, and am momentarily robbed of breath. Like any reasonably educated person, I know a bit about mass effect fields; enough to know that you need a proper engine and a fair bit of eezo to power them. But there, defying all known laws of physics, is a mass of jagged stones simply...floating there, with nothing to suggest any sort of mass effect field affecting them.

“Look! Port side!” Fisher calls, and as one, Cora, Harry, and I rush to the opposite window, where we behold a massive structure; a monument of some kind, built at an angle and almost resembling one of the large missile launchers from the twenty-first century.

“That _has_ to be advanced engineering,” Cora breathes. Her tone is almost...reverent?

“Hyperion, this is the Pathfinder. We’ve got evidence of an alien civilization.”

“Has anyone seen us?” I demand.

“What if they’re not friendly?” the british guy adds.

“We stick to contact protocol,” the Pathfinder asserts. “No use of deadly force unless hostile intent is clear.”

A bright light flashes just outside our shuttle, accompanied by a loud _crack_. “Shit!” Fisher exclaims almost immediately after. “Ionization just spiked!” His voice crackles over comms, followed by a series of pops and electrical sparking. Alarms fill the channel.

“Shuttle Two, what’s going on?”

“Lightning strike!”

My breath catches. I can’t see their shuttle anymore; the cloudbank obscures them too much, even with all the flashes of light.

“I’ve lost control! This is shu...two, dec...ing...ency! We’ve...fire!”

Our own transport shudders violently in the sudden storm, and I nearly lose my footing until Cora catches me. Her face is drawn into a tight grimace. There’s another flash out the starboard window, but orange this time, and for the brief second of illumination it provides, I watch as a large chunk of Shuttle Two rips free and plummets away.

“Liam!” my sister yells.

“...oing do...peat...down!”

Time seems to slow. I watch, helpless to do anything, as a giant ball of flame flares up from a point somewhere in the cloudbank. Distantly, I hear my sister yell in alarm. Chunks of the shuttle, silhouetted against the blast, burst out from the point of the explosion, each trailing fire and smoke. And there, visible against the fire, are two bodies dropping at alarming speeds. 

I wail--a primal, keening howl that claws its way out of my throat and burns the edges of my vision. Hot tears well up in the corners of my eyes and spill down my cheeks, unchecked, as I rush to the window in a vain attempt to get to my sister. Strong hands grip my shoulders, but I scarcely feel them through my shock and pain.

“ _Sara!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *evil laugh*
> 
> (on a more serious note, writing that last paragraph was a bitch. that alone took me damn near an hour to get right)


	3. Habitat-7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A continuation of the Pathfinder team's mission to Habitat-7, featuring way more action than the team expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait everyone! I swear I tried to finish this by the 11th, but life and writer's block got in the way. I've got my beta reader to thank for inspiring my lazy ass to writing 3,000 words this weekend for their birthday (which was on the 22nd, so I'm a little late. happy birthday!), and also a certain author on here for collaborating and listening to my terrible ideas for the past like two weeks. You know who you are.
> 
> Anyways, enough about me. On to the action!

“Take the shuttle down!” I howl as I struggle in vain to free myself of the vice-like hold Cora has around me.

“Not in this storm we can’t!” my father calls back. “We’d risk losing our own shuttle!”

As if to prove his point, the craft rocks violently as a massive thunderclap hits us. Emergency lights begin flashing, and alarms blare throughout the cabin. Cora’s grip loosens and I stagger forwards before I can compensate for the sudden lack of restraint. I barely manage to catch myself on the forward bulkhead. The impact jars my shoulder as it takes the brunt of the force.

“We have to make it to the LZ in one piece first and foremost,” he yells over the wind and sirens. “We can look for survivors then, but we can’t do that if we go down too!”

“I don’t care! Put the shuttle down!”

Strong hands seize my shoulders, and Cora’s faceplate appears in front of me. “Pull yourself together! You’re no good to Sara or the others dead!”

“I can confirm that each person who was aboard Shuttle Two is still alive,” SAM intones. “However, I can not say for certain that they will survive a fall from this height, even with their jump-jets.”

Cora’s grip on my shoulders tightens. “What do you think they would do if they were in our position?”

The only sounds for a long moment are the roar of the wind and the steady wail of the alarms as we continue our unsteady, erratic descent through the atmosphere. “...They would get to the landing zone first. Make sure at least one shuttle lands safely, then look for…” I gulp. “...look for survivors.”

Her hold on my shoulders relaxes, and she tries to smile. “If there’s one thing I know about you Ryders, it’s that you’re survivors. She’ll be just fine, you’ll see.” Cora snorts. “Heh, and knowing your sister, she’ll probably come back carrying all the others on her back. Probably ask what took us so long.”

I try to smile, but all I can feel is an emptiness in my chest that threatens to consume me, so I merely drop my gaze to the floor and nod absently.

“Approaching the LZ,” Dad announces. “SAM, what’s our approach look like?”

No response.

“SAM?”

“We’ve lost contact with the Hyperion,” Hayes reports. “Attempting to re-establish the connection.”

Dr. Carlyle snorts. “This day just keeps getting better and better.”

“Murphy’s Law,” my father remarks.

The shuttle groans as we dip down into a valley and shudders as it pulls G’s to level off over the landing zone, but the damage to the ship is too much, and we all but crash the last few metres to the ground with a jolt. The hull groans from the impact, as does everyone aboard.

“Everyone okay back there?” my father calls over the alarms, and is met with a chorus of grunts. He breathes a sigh of relief over comms, then flicks some switches and powers down the shuttle. At last the alarms cease their cacophony, and the lights pause their strobing and dim to a less blinding luminance.

The Pathfinder rises from his seat, drawing the attention of everyone in the shuttle. “This is it, team. The moment we’ve all been training for. Today marks a momentous landmark in our history, not just for humanity but for all Milky Way species. ‘One small step’ doesn’t even come close to describing this.”

“Forgive the interruption, Pathfinder,” Harry starts, “but shouldn’t we start actually taking that ‘small step’ instead of talking about it?”

We all chuckle at that, including the Pathfinder. “Absolutely, Doctor. Let’s get out there and greet our new home.” He walks towards the starboard shuttle doors and stands there, his hand hovering over the door controls. “You all know the drill. I want a forward station set up inside of five minutes.” And with that, the door opens, giving us our first taste of Andromeda.

The change in atmosphere is almost immediate; with a rush, nearly all the air in the cabin is sucked out before the door is even fully open. And when it finally is, it opens out to... not much of anything, really. Largely barren rock with scatterings of a lichen-like substance, something akin to grass, and stunted shrubs growing in the cracks. The world around us is a mix of greys, yellows, and mottled greens, illuminated by cloud-filtered sunlight and the occasional far-off flash of lightning. The very ground itself looks electrically charged; groups of small rocks float centimetres above it, surrounded by crackling static. As we watch, one pile seems to energize, floating higher with more static energy, before a jagged bolt strikes it and all charge dissipates from it.

What I’m most surprised at is how quiet it was. Rather than a booming thunderclap, all that could really be heard from it was a sort of loud zap. Whether it was automatic noise dampening systems in my helmet, a relative lack of air for the sound to pass through, or it was merely a weak ass lightning bolt, I can only dare to guess.

“We’re definitely not in Kansas anymore,” Hayes mutters.

Our Pathfinder takes the first steps out into this alien world, the Lieutenant and I not far behind. Were it not for the air quality and the fact that he’s wearing a helmet, I imagine that my father would be taking a deep breath of this new world, tasting it, savoring it.

But apparently, savoring the moment is the last thing on his mind. “Get a perimeter set up around this side of the shuttle,” he orders, pointing down to the ground at his feet. “We’ve got natural shelter with all these rocks around, so if anything or anyone tries to come at us, they’ll be met with as much firepower as we can spare. Harper, Ryder, I want you two here helping the others set up. Make sure the shuttle is repaired by the time I get back.”

“What about you, sir?” Cora questions.

“I’ll be on frequency one-five-three-point-four. I’m going to scout out that structure we saw on our way down.” The Pathfinder looks over his shoulder at us. A far-off flash of lightning blazes across his faceplate. “And I’m going to find our team and bring them back.” Before anyone else can say anything he sets off away from the shuttle, out into this strange, treacherous world.

I stand rooted to the spot, numb. Some dark corner of my mind whispers that this will be the last time I ever see my family. I hastily brush the thought away.

“You heard the Pathfinder,” Cora barks, snapping me out of my reverie. “Hayes, start bringing out those barricades from the back of the shuttle. We can work on fixing the shuttle up once we’ve got a perimeter up. Carlyle, make sure those medical supplies are close by for if we need them, then grab some more gear. Ryder,” she turns to me, “bring out that weapons cache. I hope to the Goddess we don’t need any of them, but the way this day is going…”

I nod tightly and hasten back to the shuttle, the Lieutenant hot on my heels. Once in, and after dodging around the bundle of metal alloy Hayes is carrying out, I grab hold of one of the weapons crates I had helped pack not even a half hour ago. I hoist the container in question up to rest against my abdomen as Cora seizes another of the barricade rigs from the back of the shuttle.

* * *

Surprisingly, or maybe not, it doesn’t take us very long to get everything set up; directly in front of the shuttle, where the ground falls away into a shallow ravine, we’ve set up a line of the barricades. Interspersed among them are several light posts and now-empty crates, along wifth some atmospheric equipment. Not that it’s of any use on a planet as inhospitable to humans as this one is turning out, but it’s still data that needs gathering. Who knows what’ll be of use to the Initiative in the long run.

With forward station setup complete, we can all turn to the task of fixing the shuttle back up. Thankfully, the Initiative had apparently thought ahead for scenarios like this and had helpfully included schematics and repair manuals for everything, so despite having only one “real” engineer in our squad, we’re able to start making repairs with little confusion. Cora and Harry have the relatively simple tasks of making the ship flight-worthy, so all they really have to do is patch some wiring and run diagnostics on all the shuttle’s systems, while I stand watch for any potential hostiles with one of the Vipers I helped pack. Hayes, meanwhile, has the exciting task of attempting to fix comms, both with the Hyperion and all of the Pathfinder team.

“Sure would be a lot easier if we had SAM,” she grunts as she runs her scanner over a section of wires for what must be the twentieth time.

“All the more motivation to re-establish contact with him,” Harry quips.

Hayes’ response is to throw a wrench at him.

“Ha! Missed.”

She flips him the bird.

I shake my head and turn away to look out over the valley. At first glance, there isn’t much to Habitat-7, but when you really look at it, you can see a beauty in the rawness of it. Wildflowers, glowing shrubs, and purple trees eaking out a living among the harsh stone fill me with the slightest hope that maybe, just maybe, this planet could one day be a home for humanity. _If it weren’t constantly trying to kill us_ , I remind myself.

“Wish there was more I could do,” I say to no one in particular. “I feel so useless just standing around here not helping anyone. I don’t even have anything to shoot at.”

“That’s a good thing though,” Harry responds. “Means we’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Yeah, nothing, you know, except this crazy weather and the fact that the entirety of Shuttle Two, including my _sister_ , is probably dead, and my dad might soon join them,” I snap. “And of course we don’t know _anything_ yet because comms are still down.”

“Hey, chill the fuck out, okay? I’m fixing it as fast as I can.” Hayes grunts. “You wanna feel useful? Come over here and give me a hand.”

“No.” Cora stands and glares at each of us in turn. “Ryder’s our weapons specialist, and she’s vicious with a sniper rifle. We need her keeping watch in case something happens.”

I gesture around the expansive, desolate valley with my rifle. “Watch for what? What could possibly happen?”

As if on cue, a shot rings out across the valley, followed almost immediately by a large chunk of rock exploding in an amber and grey burst barely a metre from where I’m standing. The shot is swiftly accompanied by several others, all of them heading right towards us.

“Get down!”

A sizzle of plasma narrowly misses the side of my helmet as I dive behind a boulder on the edge of our small encampment. Sharp cracks sound as the rounds bore into the rocks around me. I fumble with the safety of my rifle until I’m certain it’s off, then check around me. Cora and Harry are sheltering behind one of the barricades, Cora with a shotgun drawn and looking like she’s itching to fight, and Harry practically juggling a pistol that I would guess was tossed to him by someone. Hayes has managed to take some cover behind a wall of crates next to the shuttle. As I watch, she raises a pistol up into the air, aiming towards the sky, and fires three shots that streak away from the barrel on trails of light and smoke. A second later, the shots burst into life with a shower of sparks high overhead; flares. With luck, someone who doesn’t want to kill us will see them.

“Harry, you gonna be okay with that?” I call across the way, raising my voice despite the comms systems in our helmets.

“Yeah, yeah, just been a while,” he answers. Having finally secured his grip on the pistol in question, he pops up briefly, sights, and fires on one of the...hell, I don’t even know what we’re up against, but whatever it is it’s obviously alien.

I scoot around my boulder to a position that’ll offer me both cover and visual of the valley-turned-battlefield, set the barrel of my rifle on the smaller rock in front of me, and look through the scope.

What I see takes my breath away.

They’re definitely aliens alright, and _fuck_ they’re ugly. At first glance they look almost like a cross between Turians and Batarians, but somehow with a less menacing and more craggy, sickly appearance. Not to say that they aren’t scary as shit as is. Green and grey armor covers their legs and chest, and their heads and arms are covered in a thick, off-white bone-like substance, a carapace of sorts. Underneath it, visible only on their face and shoulders, their skin is an ashen grey. The visible skin--if that’s even what it is--of their arms is veiny to the point of looking almost puckered, and their faces are….lifeless. Dead, milky eyes stare out from under boney eyebrows. I shiver involuntarily.

A shot whizzes past my head, reminding me of what I’m supposed to be doing. I swiftly bring the barrel around to track the path of one of the aliens as it weaves between the rocks, line the crosshairs up with the head, breathe in, continue tracking its movement, breathe out...and fire. The butt of the rifle punches my shoulder as it recoils from the shot; the sharp report echoes throughout the valley. A gout of greenish fluid spurts out the back of the thing’s head and it tumbles forward in a jumble of limbs. _So headshots can kill them, just like anything else. Good._ I quickly swing the barrel around in search of another target, hoping to pick one or two more off before they can find cover from sniper fire.

“Hayes! Get those fucking comms working again!” Cora shouts.

“Not helping, Harper!”

The sudden harsh noise in my ear causes me to miss an otherwise fatal shot, and I end up shooting the thing in the shoulder. The alien stumbles backwards from the force of the shot, which gives me the opportunity I need to finish it off. I duck back behind the boulder to load up a fresh thermal clip.

“This is Lieutenant Harper, calling SOS on frequency one-five-four-point three! Repeat, SOS on frequency one-five-four-point three. Anyone there?”

“It’s no use, Lieutenant.” Harry says as he takes a potshot. “For all we know, the Pathfinder’s the only one on that channel.”

I raise the rifle scope to my right eye and search in vain for more of the aliens. They seem to have learned from their fallen comrades to not stand out in the open. Something moves out of the corner of my left eye, and I swing the barrel towards it, managing to catch sight of an alien disappearing behind a rock.

My finger hovers over the trigger, waiting for my target to pop up, when the comms crackle. “Cora, we read you. You’re alive!” I pause and raise my head. _It can’t be…_

“Shuttle repairs are underway, but we’re surrounded!” There’s an anxious note to the Lieutenant’s voice, not that I can blame her.

“They’re not friendly,” my sister responds. “On our way...nav-point marked!”

“Sara?” I gasp, having finally regained the ability to speak. “Are you really there?”

“What, you thought being thrown out of a shuttle in the mid troposphere would kill me?”

“Yep, that’s her alright,” Cora says with fondness.

“Nice to see you too, sugar.”

Hayes groans. “Get a room!”

I roll my eyes and shake my head at their antics. With renewed determination, I bring my rifle back up, search for a new target, and fire, grimacing slightly at the impact of the recoil on my shoulder. I fire two more shots in quick succession, mostly to keep their heads down. When I drop back to reload, I spot her.

From the far side of the valley, a bright blue blur streaks towards us at astounding speed and rams into one of the aliens from the side, knocking it into a nearby boulder with such force that visible cracks form in the rock. I watch in awe as my sister appears from the haze of biotics surrounding the impact and dashes straight towards another nearby alien, jumps into the air, and rams her omni-blade straight through its neck as she plants her feet on its chest. The impact forces the alien down with an audible _squelch_ ; it’s dead before it even hits the ground. She stands quickly and looks around the field briefly, chest heaving, then disappears in a biotic rush towards an unsuspecting enemy.

“Cora, we’ve got your back!” a British voice announces, accompanied by the explosion of a grenade in the general direction from which Sara had arrived from. I use the ensuing panic to take out one of the aliens that tried to escape the blast.

A shot grazes the rock right next to where my elbow is propped, and I quickly drop back into cover. Dust and stone churn as a hail of weapons fire sprays above and around me. “They’re trying to pin us down!” I call out.

“Doing a damn good job of it, too!” Hayes yells back.

Another burst of small arms fire. “Ryder, light ‘em up!” the new guy hollers.

“I’m on it!” my sister and I respond in sync. The sound of enemy fire is promptly replaced by that of a mass effect field collapsing, as well as something that sounds like a scream from one of the aliens. I seize the opening my sister just provided to pop back up, sight my rifle on one that’s running out in the open, and fire. Once, twice on the target, then a third time to take out the alien that made the unlucky mistake of following the first. It spasms as its body becomes riddled with bullets from our side of the battlefield. Both drop like Krogan skydiving on Dekuuna.

“Pick your targets!” Cora shouts at us.

Another warping sound as my sister displaces gravity around herself and launches herself somewhere out into the field. “Plenty of those!” she whoops when she comes to a stop.

I finish reloading a fresh thermal clip into the Viper and bring it back up to my shoulder. “Not if I have anything to say about it!” I don’t even use the scope at this point; just point at anything dark grey that moves and shoot. There’s definitely a lot of them, but their numbers are dwindling rapidly.

“Ha!” Harry cries, “I got one!”

Another grenade explodes, this time closer to us, and alien bodies--pieces of them, anyways--go flying. Someone’s weapon coughs, followed by a strangled cry from among the rocks. I look out over the field once more, but the only movement I see now is the rustling of the grasses in the wind, and two white-and-blue helmets appearing over a rise.

“Well, that settled _that_ ,” the British voice says, a voice that can only belong to the man walking alongside my sister.

My sister who, somehow, survived a shuttle explosion and a several kilometre fall through open air.

“You’re alive…” I breathe, standing slowly.

“Cavalry to the rescue. Nice to see you guys,” Harry says. I notice him standing up as well, dusting off his legs as he does.

“You too, Harry,” Sara chirps. “How is everyone?”

“Worried sick for you!” I shout. My legs spring into action, and without any conscious thought I find myself vaulting over the boulder and running towards my sister, rifle forgotten behind me. _My sister! My sister is alive!_

“Aw, you missed me that much?”

Rather than respond verbally, I run straight into her arms and crush her in the strongest embrace I can manage with our armor on. Sara staggers back with the force of the tackle, then wraps her arms around me in turn. I bury my helmet down in her shoulder and breathe shakily.

We stand among the rocks and bodies like that for a long moment, and I’m certain I’m not the only one sobbing. “I thought I lost you,” I mumble once I catch my breath.

“Can’t get rid of me that easy,” she murmurs. Her hold on me tightens.

But the moment isn’t to last. “You got here just in time, Sara. Don’t know how much longer we could have lasted.” The Lieutenant appears a few metres away, walking steadily towards us.

“Glad to be of service, Cora,” Sara replies as we step apart.

Cora closes the gap between us and lays a hand on my sister’s arm. “Just don’t you go dying on us again, okay? That’s an order.”

Sara snorts. “No promises.” We all start the walk back towards the shuttle together. As we approach, she asks, “Where’s dad?”

“Pathfinder went scouting ahead while we fixed the shuttle,” Cora explains.

“Made it very clear that he wasn’t to be followed,” I add.

My sister gives me a look, visible even through her faceplate. “You tried to use that cloaking device of yours to follow him, didn’t you.”

I shrug. “I mean, the thought _had_ crossed my mind…”

“Hmph. Like you would have been able to leave without me noticing,” Cora admonishes. We enter our makeshift camp. “Sara, there’s weapons and ammo at the shuttle. Stock up.”

I follow my sister as she makes her way to the weapons cache, needing to stock up on ammo after that skirmish. Sara opens one crate while I dig through another.

“Did these things try talking to you at all?” she asks.

I shake my head and stand. “Not a word. Just started shooting. What about you?”

“We didn’t really stop for a chat,” Sara says nonchalantly. She reaches into the crate and pulls out an M-23 Katana, hefting it in her hands.

The new guy joins us and goes for the ammo crate I had just pilfered. As he bends over, I notice a familiar rifle strapped to his back.

“Is...is that an X-5 Ghost?”

“Wha...Oh, this?” He looks over his shoulder at the weapon in question. “Yeah. Managed to snag one before we left the Milky Way. You’d think that a gun made specifically for the Initiative would have been easier to come by.” He stands and looks at me. “Why’d ya ask?”

“I couldn’t get one for mission use,” I say. “And I was the one who designed them.”

“That was you? Wait, so you’re Kate Ryder, right?”

“Nah, she’s an impostor,” my sister jibes, poking my side.

I elbow her in the ribs. “Ignore my older sister, she thinks she’s funny.”

He chuckles. “Don’t I know it. I’m Kosta, by the way. Liam Kosta.” Liam holds out a hand.

“Nice to finally put a name to the faceplate,” I remark, shaking the proffered hand.

“Oh hell,” Hayes shouts before he can say anything else. “Enemy ship on the way!”

The loud whir of an engine fills the air as a large, menacing, green transport flies towards us from the far side of the valley.

“You have _got_ to be kidding me!” I hiss in exasperation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A big thank you to the people who took the time to comment on the last few chapters, your kind words are very much appreciated! (and also another part of what cured my writer's block if I'm being honest). Hope you all liked the chapter!


	4. Valley Forge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle continues on Habitat-7 as more aliens join the fight and we finally get to really see the Ryder siblings in combat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm gonna be honest and say that I almost posted this chapter 2 weeks ago, when it was only 2,111 words long, but it just felt too short, like barely anything really happened, so I held off and continued with it. Then school got crazy as we moved into the final weeks of the term, and free time decided to take an early vacation
> 
> I assure you, the wait was worth it.

“Get to cover!” the Lieutenant yells at us from her position near the forward barriers. “Go! Go!”

We all hurry to do just that as the small ship approaches; Hayes and Carlyle duck behind a wall of crates and one of the pieces of atmospheric equipment rising over them, Liam finds shelter behind a small boulder off to the left, and my sister and I both shoulder up against the same wall of rock I’d already been using as cover. Once secured, though, my attention returns to the shuttle hurtling towards us, as does my sister’s.

The ship itself looks as ungainly as it is ugly, which is saying something if it was made by the equally as ugly aliens that now litter the valley in front of our position. The same sickly green colour as the aliens’ armor covers almost every surface of the bulbous shuttle, save for some stubby...antennae of a sort that wiggle around at the butt of the shuttle, and two dark matte grey...horns, I guess, that curve out then inwards from the nose. In a way, it almost resembles a cross between a Salarian’s head and some fuck-ugly deep-sea Earth fish you get nightmares about after learning of its existence. Emphasis on ugly.

The ship in question slows with a loud thrum of its engines until it’s hovering in roughly the middle of the valley, ironically several meters directly above the cracked rock where my sister slammed and killed one of the aliens. A bright light flares to life from the belly of the thing and sweeps the area immediately around it, then moves to give us a once over before going dark. The ship hovers backwards a small ways, turns so the starboard side is facing us, and lowers slightly, revealing an open bay door occupied by three of the aliens.

“Here they come!” Cora reminds us, as if we can’t see for ourselves what’s coming.

“They got balls to try an airdrop,” Liam spits out.

 _Works for me_ . Taking advantage of the opportunity at a clear shot, I flick the safety off my rifle and swiftly bring it up to rest on the boulder in front of me. _Heh, if we stay here any longer, I might start wearing this rock down a bit,_ I think to myself as I line up the shot with both eyes. The crosshairs swing up to bring the three into view, just as the one in front jumps out of the craft. I smile, then shoot the being directly behind where the first was just recently standing. The thing’s head explodes in a shower of greenish yellow fluid, and the body topples over backwards past the third and very surprised looking alien. I use its momentary lapse in focus to take it out as well, then duck back behind the boulder to rub my sore shoulder.

“ _Fuck_ this thing packs a punch,” I groan.

“Wouldn’t hurt as much if you saved some for the rest of us,” my sister fires back. Still, I can hear the grin in her voice even over comms.

“Hey, if it means one less alien that’s shooting at us,” Harry remarks, “I’m happy to let her take them out.”

“Glad one of us is happy about it,” I grumble. I lean over to peek over the top of what I’m coming to affectionately know as my rock, but the movement I see is scattered and very much entrenched behind cover, so I lean back and nudge my sister in the side. “Looks like it’s your turn.”

Her helmet covers her mouth, but I can tell she’s grinning by the way her eyes turn up at the corners. “Finally. How many are left?”

“Think I saw three of ‘em drop out,” Liam answers. A weapon coughs, followed by a _ping_ as the round bounces off a rock. “Well, three live ones, anyways.”

I chuckle humorlessly at that and turn to my sister. “Think you can handle it?”

She gives me a look and snorts. “What do you think?”

Before I can respond, Harry lets out a whoop. “Ha! Lightning zapped their shuttle!” Sara and I both poke up to look over our protective boulder, and sure enough, the alien ship is careening to the side of the valley, blue flames and smoke trailing from a gaping hole in its flank. It passes beyond sight upon rounding the ridge to the right at the mouth of the valley. Not long after, an eruption of blue smoke billows back into the valley.

The explosion seems to also draw the attention of the aliens, as when I turn back I notice the three remaining are all staring after the remains of their transport. Unfortunately, before I can even bring my rifle back up, Liam squeezes off a few rounds that go wide of their mark, which serves to remind them to keep their heads down. Still, I now know their positions. More importantly, so does Sara.

“Cover me,” is all she says before launching herself up and over the boulder with her jump jets. A chorus of small arms far greets her, though the reports of their guns and the sounds of the plasma charges zinging past us are momentarily drowned out by the warping noise of my sister bending space around herself. I raise my rifle back up to its now familiar position, but don’t look through the scope just yet; rather, I try to keep my eyes on the whole of the valley so as to better spot any threats to her.

By the looks of things, her charge into their midst didn’t catch any of the aliens, for there are still three guns firing, though only two of them are shooting in our direction now. I spot the charges from the third’s weapon shooting off to the side from behind a massive boulder, and when I look over to where they appear to be landing, I find my sister taking cover behind a stubby wall of rock on the far left of the valley, fumbling with her shotgun. Her cursing is barely audible over comms. As I watch, a spray of plasma takes a chunk out of the wall above her, eliciting a string of louder and more colourful expletives from Sara.

“Harry,” Cora suddenly calls, “you guys okay?”

“Not dead yet!” he answers. _Shit, I’ve been so focused on Sara that I forgot about the rest of the team_. As if to add weight to my thoughts, a hail of plasma rains down on the crates he’s using as cover. Several of the rounds tear straight through the material, and more than a few hit his kinetic shields. “Damn!”

I try to spot the source of the fire, but my prolonged exposure to the enemy costs me. Three rounds impact the shields surrounding my helmet and upper body, nearly depleting them. And of course, I can’t tell from which direction the shots came from, as my attention is focused much farther out on the battlefield. I duck back behind the larger boulder to let them recharge and to come up with a plan. And maybe steady my breathing.

Distantly, a warping sound echoes across the valley, followed closely by a strangled scream. I smile slightly. _Only two to go._

“I’m going in,” I announce, more for my team’s benefit than my own. “Try not to shoot me.” Plan in mind, I bring up my omni-tool on my right arm and, after a moment of sifting through menu screens, activate the cloaking technology I’d had integrated into my gear back in the Milky Way. I watch with no small amount of satisfaction as the entirety of my suit, as well as the rifle in my right hand, quickly fades from view; the only indication anything is there at all is a slight warping of the area behind that part of my suit. That done, I grip my rifle in both hands and quickly skirt around the right side of the boulder, out into the open field. I sprint along the right of the valley, nearly hugging the side of it as I hope that neither of the remaining aliens, nor even my own team, sends any stray rounds my way.

As I run, I track the locations of the shots being fired towards our encampment and narrow their origin down to a small clearing behind a wall of sunken boulders. Both aliens appear to be entrenched there together, which explains why Sara hasn’t taken either of them out yet. She operates almost entirely on having the element of surprise and tends to only go after enemies that are isolated and unprotected. Leaves the rest up to me and Scott to pick off or subdue.

_But Scott isn’t here._

I push on until I’m behind a rock that allows me a direct sightline to the two remaining aliens. Only then do I deactivate my cloaking tech and allow myself a deep breath to steady myself. In the background, the rest of the Pathfinder team continues to take potshots at the aliens, and vice versa. A moment passes. Satisfied that I haven’t been spotted and that my breathing has returned to normal--as normal as it can get in the middle of a firefight, anyways--I peek around the side of the rock to locate my targets. Unsurprisingly, I find them still in roughly the same position as before, though they appear to be agitated with each other; one is gesticulating wildly with its weapon, and even from across the field I can hear them yelling in some strange, guttural language of their own.

Their mistake.

With all the time in the world at my disposal, I nonchalantly raise my rifle up to rest against the side of the rock, remaining in a crouch as I do so. The angle is slightly awkward, and I have to bear more of the weight of the weapon than previously, though it’s an overall safer position for me to be in. It allows me to miss a few shots and remain at minimal risk of being shot back at, whereas resting the stock of the rifle on the top of the rock would present my helmet and shoulders to the enemy.

Just behind the aliens, a cluster of loose rocks rises into the air amidst a blue haze of static.

Hayes must be able to see it too, for she yelps, “Since when do rocks float?”

“Just go with it!” is the response she gets from my sister.

Barely a moment later, a thin lightning bolt snakes its way down from the clouds above to strike the floating rocks in question, catching one of the aliens in its path. I expect the thing to seize up like would normally happen when a person is struck by lightning, but...it merely drops dead on the spot. No scream of pain, no convulsing, no explosion of blood and guts; it just slumps to the ground in a heap. Its comrade looks on in what I assume is a mixture of confusion and horror.

 _They really do love giving me every possible chance to shoot them._ I grimace at the thought, but still, it’s an opportunity I can’t pass up. All I have to do is twitch the barrel of the rifle a bit to the left, a tad upwards, breathe out, and--

“Heads up!” Liam yells out, snapping my focus and causing me to yet again miss an otherwise fatal shot. “Another shuttle incoming!”

I look around the valley; at the storm clouds boiling far above, and at the bolts of lightning that flicker into existence around us every few seconds. “In this weather?!”

“Guess we got their attention,” Cora says.

A short moment of almost-silence hangs in the heavy air, and then I hear it. The engines have the same thrum as those of the shuttle before, but I can’t pinpoint their location even as they grow louder, closer. I glance off to the right, towards the far end of the valley, but find nothing but distant mountains and the faintest traces of lingering blue smoke. It’s not ahead of me, on the left flank of the position the others are occupying, which really only leaves…

“Ryder!” “Kate!” “Get out of there!” “Watch out!” Four voices all shout in chorus, but I can only watch mutely as a large shadow glides over the rocky outcropping I lean against, and the world around me darkens. I gaze up in silent horror; the pocked and knobby underside of an alien shuttle fills my vision, blocking out everything.

_Oh, fuck._

The downdraft of the craft’s engines blows up dust around me, the noise of the thing penetrating my helmet and reverberating through my skull. Distantly, I hear yelling--indistinct and harsh. I’m frozen to the spot as three aliens jump out of the shuttle in quick succession, landing a few short metres in front of me in an outward-facing triangle formation. The one closest to me spots me almost as soon as its feet touch down, and shouts something in that same harsh language I heard just moments ago, causing the others to turn and all three to level their rifles at me. I scrabble backwards, rifle forgotten on the ground, and bump into the very rock I had so recently been using as cover.

The alien closest to me opens its mouth, but instead of the harsh language of before, what comes out is a tremendous warping that’s felt more than heard, and an instant later my sister slams into being in a burst of violet light with her fist _through_ the things mouth. It gurgles faintly as Sara kicks it in the chest and rips her arm out of its head with a sickening _squelch_ , sending the thing’s body toppling backwards. Alien blood drips from her fist and forearm. Before the thing even hits the ground, her shotgun is in her hands and pumping round after round into the nearest of the remaining two aliens; greenish-yellow blood spurts out of it with each impact. The force of the shots sends it staggering backwards until Sara fires a round that utterly destroys one of its legs. It goes down with a harsh cry and stays there. She turns to the third being, which I realize has been shooting her kinetic shields down the entire time, raises her shotgun, and fires.

Nothing.

With a grunt, she tosses the weapon aside and takes two quick strides towards the alien, then jumps, omni-blade unfolding on her left wrist as she draws it back. As if sensing its fate, the thing turns to run as she leaps. It manages three steps before my sister drops onto it and drives the glowing silicon-carbide blade through the back of its neck with a yell. Blood sprays across her faceplate and chestpiece. The blade retracts as she pulls her hand back, and the alien’s body twitches once as she does.

Sara stands, breathing heavily, and wipes one gloved hand across her helmet in a vain attempt to clear the gore from it. After a moment spent catching her breath, my sister turns to me.

“Are you okay?”

I nod mutely, but not just because of shock. When Sara turned to me, two more aliens jumped out of the shuttle that still hovers above us, and the second of them to land is a head taller and almost twice as thick as the first. The gun it hefts must weigh as much as I do.

And it’s coming right at us.

Sara’s focus stays on me, oblivious to the danger advancing on us. “Can you stand? Come on, we need to get you out of here.”

I can only point to the alien marching towards us. Sara turns to face the giant just in time to be bludgeoned on the side of her helmet with a loud _crack_ by the butt of the massive rifle the thing wields. She lets out a yelp of pain as the force of the blow lifts her completely off her feet, then another when she crashes to the rough ground several metres away. She rolls to a stop after a moment and lays there groaning.

“Sara!” shouts a voice not my own, followed the sound of jump-jets firing. A body wrapped in a haze of magenta leaps into my field of view and slams down directly in front of the alien, releasing a wave of violet energy on impact. The wave knocks the brute back several steps, and before it can recover, Cora appears from the fading biotic mist and begins pumping shell after shell into it. The majority of them are nullified by a surprising kinetic shield of its own, but the last shot Cora fires manages to draw blood from a graze to its side. The alien stumbles back somewhat, its left hand leaving its weapon to cover the wound.

The Lieutenant turns to me as she ejects the spent thermal clip and fishes for a new one. “What are you doing? Get Sara and get out of here! I’ve got this!”

I fumble blindly around me for my rifle, feet still unresponsive to my commands. Behind Cora, the alien seems to have recovered from her initial assault and has raised its rifle towards us again. Just as I manage to grab the rifle still slung across my back, a loud whirring sound emanates from the weapon in the alien’s hands, and a second later, a torrent of plasma spits out of the barrel. I squeeze my eyes shut and brace for the pain of the shots ripping through me...but it never comes. What comes instead is a loud grunt from someone and a myriad of muffled _pings_. Hesitantly, I open my eyes, and find Cora standing a few paces in front of me, holding a biotic barrier in front of her with her left arm as if it were a shield. Not a single round gets through; instead, they’re either absorbed by the barrier or reflected away, some of them even hitting the ground close to the alien and churning up dust and stone.

“I can’t keep this up forever, Ryder!” she grunts. Already, the strain of keeping the shield up against the onslaught is evident in her shaking limbs. The force of the fire is enough to push Cora ever so slightly backwards with each second that passes, digging her feet in against it as she is.

Gracelessly, and nearly falling on my face in the process, I scramble to my feet and pull the Avenger away from my back with unsteady hands, unfolding it to firing mode as I do. Just in time, too; the alien weapon ceases its fire, ammunition spent, and Cora lets go of the shield with a groan, arm falling limply at her side. She stands there, shoulders hunched and chest heaving from her efforts. As soon as she drops the shield, I unload an entire thermal clip into the alien. With no time to reload and nothing but an empty weapon to defend itself with, it folds under my assault. I advance steadily, shaking subsiding with each step, and keep my weapon trained and firing at it as its shields are broken. I mentally count the seconds it takes me to empty the thermal clip, and as soon as that number reaches eight, I eject the spent clip from the top of the rifle, grab a fresh one from my belt, slap it in, cock the rifle, and continue firing, all in one fluid motion. Shots that before only impacted kinetic shields now draw blood. Before long, the alien is lying on the ground in a growing pool of its own blood, unmoving.

I heave a sigh of relief and lower the rifle to rest at my hip, then turn to face the Lieutenant. “You okay?”

“I should be asking you that,” she pants.

“Oh yeah, I’m perfectly fine, thanks for asking. No need for anyone to worry about me,” my sister says flippantly as she picks herself up off the ground. “Wasn’t like I got hit so hard I went flying or anything.” She cracks her neck as if to prove the point, the sound audible through her comms.

I scoff. “Like that’s ever stopped you before.” Still, I’m glad she wasn’t hurt too badly.

“And how many times have you ever seen me fight, exactly?”

A shout over comms cuts in before I can respond. “The fuck, are those dogs?!” Hayes yells. I turn back to the shuttle and the rest of our small team to find Hayes, Liam, and Harry being besieged by...fuck if I know, but they look like a dog-sized cross between a badger, a porcupine, and a Krogan. They have almost the exact same skin and carapace of the other aliens, though more flesh than not, with thick spines jutting out from their shoulders and backbone. And they do _not_ look happy. A veritable swarm of them is surrounding the three at the shuttle, and some of them seem to phase in and out of existence.

“I wish,” Sara says, already running back to the fight. “They’ve got some weird cloaking ability. Like Kate’s suit, but biological.” She stoops to pick up her discarded shotgun and continues without breaking stride.

“You’re shitting me!” Hayes cries.

Cora runs after Sara. “Ryder, wait, you might have a concussion!”

I roll my eyes and go to where my Viper lies abandoned on the ground as I watch my sister boost forward with her jump jets. “It’s no use, Lieutenant. You’ll have to tie her down to get her to listen to sound advice.”

The sounds of gunshots and growling fill the comms channel, followed by my sister saying, “I’m down if you’re down, Harper,” with probably the biggest fucking shit-eating grin possible plastered across her smug face. She turns her head to look over at Cora, who’s paused mid-step, and even though I can’t see her face through the light reflecting off her helmet, I swear she just winked at the Lieutenant.

Liam yelps in pain, then I see one of the dog beast things go sailing over the embankment at the front of our little camp. “Not the time, guys!”

“You’re no fun.”

I pick my rifle up off the ground with my free hand and heft it. “So help me, I will shoot you myself if you don’t shut up. And I’m not sure anyone would even complain.”

“Your father would,” Cora says.

“Ehhhh…” my sister allows.

Hayes lets out a yelp before anyone can respond. “Ah! Get it off! Get it off me!”

With one last glance around the valley to confirm that no more ships or aliens are approaching, I hasten towards the shuttle, following my sister and the Lieutenant. I sling the heavy Viper over my left shoulder onto my back as I go, automatically folding itself to resting position as it does; it’s of no use now, not when the aliens are between me and the team. Even I’m not good enough to land every shot while also not hitting friendlies. Not to mention that, tactically, crossfire is the worst thing you can do if you’re on the same level as your enemy.

While Cora uses her jump jets to dive headlong into the aliens--followed up by a violet wave of biotic energy as she disappears behind a boulder and a “Thanks!” from Hayes--I use mine to skirt around the perimeter of the valley, dodging around boulders and avoiding the few friendly shots that stray my way in their attempts to hit the enemies. In my haste, though, I fail to notice the thing in time, and I end up tripping over it and landing on the unforgiving ground with a heavy thud. My rifle escapes my grip and skids away as I go sprawling.

A growl emanates from the space of nothing I just tripped over, and as I scramble to face it, the growl resolves into one of the alien badger beast things stalking towards me. Yellowish saliva drips from its massive jaws as it closes on me, beady eyes peering out from under a massive carapace that nearly covers its entire head. I scramble backwards towards my rifle, determined not to freeze in the face of danger this time, but the thing doesn’t give me the chance. It paws the ground, lets out another growl, then leaps at me. I make a split-second decision; with no time to retrieve the rifle in time to shoot the beast before it gets me, I rock forward onto the balls of my feet, swing my left arm out away from my body, then drive the flash-forged omni-blade into the beast’s underside just before it lands on me. Its momentum knocks me to the ground with the thing still on top of me, but it succeeds in driving the blade deeper into its belly. Yellowish blood sprays my armor and coats my left arm. Above me, the beast thrashes, jaws searching for something, anything to chomp, then gradually stills as it bleeds out. With a grunt, I heave the thing off me and stand, breathing heavily.

An explosion reverberates through the valley, and I look up to see another of the beasts go flying from the top of the embankment.

“Sound off!” Cora calls over the channel.

Sporadic shots. “I’m here!” Harry responds.

“Still alive!” my sister follows, emphasizing it with a biotic blow that can be heard through comms.

“Here!” Liam yells out.

“Present!” Hayes says.

“Still kicking!” I answer as I retrieve my rifle. I shake my left arm in a futile attempt to purge the alien blood from it.

“Damn!” Harry exclaims. “I can’t get a beat on these things!”

I crest the shallow rise to stand on level ground again, and before me lies chaos. A veritable herd of the beasts are running around in the center of the camp and surround most of the team, nipping at anything that moves, even each other. Hayes, Harry, and Liam are all standing together, back to back and facing outward to the horde, while Sara and Cora attempt to wade through to them from the outside. From the look of it, neither of them are doing a good job.

“There’s too many of them!” Hayes cries. I can barely see her through the mass of bodies in the way.

Cora plants the flat of her foot on one of the beast’s heads and pushes it away from her, then shoots it. “Just keep firing. We can do this!” Rather than go down from the shot to its head, the thing merely picks itself up, shakes itself, and charges at the Lieutenant again.

“Their heads are too thick to get a shot through!” I call out. The rifle feels sticky in my blood smeared hands as I raise it to firing position and run towards the group. Our best chances of survival are together; no stragglers. “Try and flip ‘em over, their undersides are vulnerable!”

“Y’know,” my sister says, unleashing a biotic kick that catapults one of the beasts into the air, “I liked them a lot better when they were only shooting at us!”

Bullets pepper its underside as it soars through the air, and as it lands I see Liam lowering his rifle-- _my_ rifle--slightly to focus once more on the wraithlike beings that shimmer in and out of existence around us. One such beast shimmers into being with its jaws fastening around his leg. Liam lets out a surprised yelp as his kinetic shields take the brunt of the bite, then swings the barrel of the Ghost to point directly at the beast’s head. With a yell, he unloads an entire thermal clip into the creature, then kicks it off and into the crowd of snapping maws.

All the while, Sara and Cora have been steadily plowing side by side through the alien creatures, leaving a trail of death in their wake, a trail through which I hastily follow, shooting around me near indiscriminately at anything that moves. “How many of these things _are_ there?” I ask no one in particular as I reload my Avenger.

“Dunno, but they won’t let up!” Liam answers.

“Shit, duck!” Hayes shouts suddenly. Mere seconds later, a roundish object lands between me and the rest of the group, bounces off the bony head of one of the beasts, and explodes in a blast of smoke, fire, and-

“Agh! Damn shrapnel!” Harry groans.

Whether the thrower of the grenade was aiming at us or the creatures, they succeeded in clearing away the majority of the beasts in a rather grisly fashion. Body parts that drip with greenish-yellow blood litter the area, and some even still rain from above where they were blown upwards. I run across the now-empty ( _Well, mostly empty,_ I tell myself as I barely avoid slipping on a slippery bit of flesh) area back toward the team while the attention of the remaining two creatures is on them; Sara and Cora dispose of both of them swiftly.

Plasma zips past my arms from behind, and I duck instinctively. Liam’s shields take a few of the shots, and then he’s running towards me with his rifle drawn and aimed somewhere behind me. Someone cries out over comms. I spin around to find his target and am greeted by one last unsightly alien advancing towards us. Before I can take a shot at it, though, Liam’s weapon coughs several times in quick succession, and the alien’s body drops, its life abruptly brought to an end.

I look around at the bodies littering the ground surrounding us. “Did that really just happen?”

A sudden hush falls over the valley, the only sound now being the whistle of the wind and the cough of Liam’s rifle as he continues shooting the body of the alien lying on the ground.

“Liam!” Cora reprimands as she and my sister jog over to us, both keeping their weapons half-drawn. “Enough!”

Liam lowers his rifle and turns to glare at us. “Right. It’s just, these assholes killed Kirkland.”

Sara takes a half step forward. “Stay pissed. Use it.”

“Will do.” He turns around and vehemently pours several more rounds into the dead alien.

I sigh. “Just remember, we need that ammo.”

Thunder rumbles in the distance. “I’ll strangle them if I have to…”

Cora turns to face Sara. “What about the others?”

“Fisher’s wounded but sitting tight.” My sister shifts on her feet and looks off behind us, then back at the Lieutenant. “Greer’s with him…though our shuttle’s in pieces.”

“Guys…” Hayes breathes. I turn to find her stepping unsteadily towards us with one hand covering her stomach, aided by Doctor Carlyle as he more or less carries her. The two slump to the ground as her legs give out under her.

“She’s been hit!” he explains.

A crash of thunder rolls through the valley. Stones lying around Hayes and Harry begin rising into the air, visible and audible electricity crackling between them. The two look around wildly as the stones continue their ascent; it can only mean one thing.

“Take cover,” Sara yells, then, louder, “Take cover!”

“But-!”

I glance back at the two on the ground, wanting to help them out of the blast zone, but they’re both frozen, unmoving but for trembling limbs that hold each other tight. With nothing I can do to help, I follow my sister and Liam as they vacate the open area for the safety of a stand of rocks.

“Hang on!” Cora shouts, and I look back to see her, not running away or helping the two move, but standing in front of them with her arm outstretched to the skies. Purple light envelops her hand, and she groans as that light expands into a bubble around the three of them. And not a moment too soon.

A massive bolt of lightning slams into the barrier as soon as it’s up, but doesn’t penetrate through to the occupants. The shield takes the entire force of the bolt, and shimmers and crackles with dispersed electricity as it does.

It’s over almost as soon as it’s begun.

I gaze in awe at the Lieutenant as she lowers her arm and lets the biotic energy fade.

“I didn’t know you were biotic,” Liam says with a mixture of reverence and apprehension. He and Sara jog back over to the group, Sara coming to stand a pace to my left.

Cora chuckles. “Don’t worry, It’s not contagious.”

“Before they attacked, I-” Hayes coughs, then grimaces as Harry applies more pressure to her abdomen. “I managed to fix our comms.”

“You’re a lifesaver. Now just take it easy,” the Lieutenant tells her.

I bring up my omni-tool and activate it. “SAM, are you there?”

A beat. “QEC link established. Affirmative, Kate.” I breathe a sigh of relief. “The Pathfinder needs to speak with you.”

The vid screen pops up, filled almost entirely by my dad’s helmet and face. “Glad to see you finally got comms up.” His voice crackles slightly. “What’s our status? Any survivors from Shuttle Two?”

Beside me, my sister activates her own omni. “Mostly. Liam and I are with Cora and Kate. Greer and Fisher are back at the crash site, though Kirkland didn’t make it.”

“Good to see you in one piece then,” dad says.

Cora brings up her omni and joins the channel. “We have wounded crew. The good news is our shuttle’s been repaired. We can get back to the ark.”

He shakes his head. “Not with these storms. It’s too risky.”

“Our wounded can’t wait much longer,” I stress. I look over at Hayes; Harry’s disappeared, presumably in search of his crate of medical supplies.

“We’ll just have to take that chance,” Sara agrees. “It’s not any better on the ground--we’re just human lightning rods running around here.”

“Not if we can turn the lightning off,” he says cryptically.

Sara looks incredulous. “I don’t follow?”

“We’re talking about _weather_ here, sir,” I emphasize.

“And I have an idea about that,” the Pathfinder says. “Rendezvous at my coordinates, we’ll-” Something causes him to look off to the side. “Damn, they spotted me.”

The connection cuts off abruptly, and the translucent holo-screen turns black.

“Sir?” Cora says tensely. “Sir!” She lowers her omni and turns to face Hayes and a returned Harry. “Can you two manage?”

Harry looks up from his application of medi gel to Hayes’ abdomen. “I can keep her stable.” He hesitates. “For a while.”

Cora chews her lip. “Right. Kate, you stay here. I sincerely hope there’s no more trouble, but if there is, you’re their last line of defense.”

I gulp. “Can’t Liam-”

My sister shakes her head. “Cora’s right. And who knows what we’ll run into out there. You can’t risk freezing up again.

“But I-”

“That’s an _order_ , Ryder.”

I sigh. “Yes, Lieutenant.”

Cora takes a breath and looks around at the darkening skies. “Soon as this storm clears, take the shuttle and go pick up Fisher and Greer, copy?” I nod. “Good.” She turns to Sara and Liam. “Let’s move.”

“Sending you the nav-point,” Sara says as she turns, fingers flying over her omni. Cora strides past her, then Liam. Sara starts to follow, then looks back at me. “Be safe.”

“You too.” I watch the retreating figure of my sister’s back as she and the others set out across the valley. “Make sure you come back,” I whisper to the winds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've only got one more week of classes left to finish my final project, so you probably won't hear from me anytime soon. I will, however, make every effort to update this story as often as possible over break, so hopefully I'll have chapter 5 up soon. Fingers crossed.
> 
> On a side note, this chapter is exactly 13 pages long in.


	5. One Journey Ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and the team finally manage to get off Habitat-7....but at what cost?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first off I wanna say, sorry for the long wait. I almost wish I could say that life got in the way, but since the start of this month I've had literally nothing going on. This should have been up weeks ago. So, thank you for your patience, and I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
> 
> And second...warning for nonstop action and major feels ahead. nonstop feels? both. both is good.
> 
> *evil laugh*

“You sure you can fly this thing?” Harry calls to me from the back of the shuttle, voice laced with apprehension.

“I mean, how hard can it be?” I answer as I begin the thankfully uncomplicated task of bringing the shuttle to life.

Hayes groans, and I don’t think it’s from the pain.

I continue. “What choice do we have, though? Hayes is in no condition, and someone who knows what they’re doing has to keep her stable. And that’s not me.” I flick one more switch, spinning the engines slowly up to full power, then grip the flight controls and pull up ever so slightly. The impulse thrusters on the bottom of the craft respond hesitantly to my touch before finally relenting and pushing us away from the ground. Gingerly, I swivel the blunt nose of the craft to port, towards the nav-point flashing on my HUD, and ease off on the throttle. The engines groan as I begin piloting the craft to the remains of Shuttle Two. “Besides, I get the feeling you’re not much better at this.”

“I’m certainly not complaining about the ride,” Hayes grunts weakly.

It was an entirely different story five minutes ago as we watched the boiling storm clouds bearing down on us. Sheets of rain were visible even from kilometres away, lightning illuminating them from within every few seconds. And then they just...stopped. Like they were hit by some giant ball of air that blew the storm front away into near nothingness. Around us, the built up static residing in the rocks all but disappeared, most of the stones falling to the ground as they found themselves suddenly susceptible to the laws of gravity.

“They did it,” I breathed as I marvelled at the scene. “They actually fucking did it.”

“You can admire the view later,” Harry had said. “Clear skies means we’re clear to fly. The sooner, the better.”

Which led to me now skirting around jagged spires of rock as I fly towards Fisher and Greer as fast as I dare.

I end up taking one particular bank too sharply, if Hayes’ sudden outcry and the sound of tumbling crates is anything to go by. “I take it back, Ryder,” she wheezes. “You’re a shit pilot. Soon as we pick up the others, Greer—” she coughs dryly. “—Greer’s taking over.”

“No arguments here.” A telltale trail of smoke comes into view, and within seconds so does what’s left of Shuttle Two, as do the two off-white figures huddling near it. “Greer, Fisher, this is Shuttle One, anyone there? Repeat, this is Shuttle One. Do you read me?”

The comms crackle for a moment, then Greer’s relieved voice sounds over them. “Loud and clear, Ryder. Damn, it’s good to hear your voice again. Thank God you guys are here!”

I smile in spite of myself as I slow the craft down to a rickety hover a ways above a relatively clear patch of ground near the smoldering shuttle. “Good to be here. Cavalry to the rescue, eh?”

Fisher’s laugh makes its way through the comms. “Our knight in shining armour, come to rescue us.”

“If anything, _you’ll_ be the ones rescuing _us_ ,” Hayes grouses as I set the shuttle down with a far from gentle bump.

Harry is opening the starboard doors before I can even get out of the pilot’s seat, rushing over to Fisher with probably more medical supplies than he’ll need. I hesitate at the threshold of the main cabin, unsure whether to help with Fisher or Hayes. She notices, as she nods weakly toward the open doors. “Go. I’ll be fine for a few minutes.” She emphasizes the statement by pressing her hands over the wound on her abdomen, only letting out a low hiss of pain. “Fisher’s probably worse off anyways.”

I pull my Avenger off my back as I exit, just to be on the safe side. Outside, the scattered remains of Shuttle Two provide a fiery backdrop to the three men huddled together against the hull. I survey the area for aliens while I jog over to the three and thankfully find none.

“Anything I can help with?” I inquire when I near them.

“Keep watch for any more of those grey bastards.” Harry runs his scanner over Fisher’s body slowly, then shakes his head. “Looks like all you’ve got is a fractured tibia and some torn ligaments around the knee, and we can take care of those in the shuttle. Nothing life threatening. Greer, help me get him up.” The doctor closes the scanner and rises, then he and Greer hoist Fisher upright by the armpits while he gets his left leg under him. Fisher cries out when his right leg is jostled against the ground; it hangs awkwardly, and the front of the his foot drags on the ground.

“You’re a lot heavier than you look, you know,” Greer grunts as he secures Fisher’s right arm around his own shoulders.

“Maybe you’re just not as strong as you think you are,” wheezes Fisher.

“Pot, kettle,” Harry says as he secures Fisher’s left arm. He turns his head to look at the other two men. “Ready?”

“Just get me to that shuttle,” is Fisher’s reply.

The three set off at a sort of hobbling shuffle while I hang back, Fisher taking small, quick steps with his good leg and cursing Greer whenever his right foot catches on a rock. I take the few seconds afforded me to look around the area, first for any potential dangers, and then at the crash itself. Smoke and flames still obscure much of the small bits of debris, but not so much the main chunk of shuttle that for the most part remained intact. Well, as intact as you could get after being ripped in half and then some by a lightning strike before crashing to the ground several thousand metres below. Hell, it’s a wonder Fisher survived at all if he was still in what I figure used to be the cockpit, now mangled almost beyond recognition. The entire back half of the shuttle—the passenger cabin and engine housing—are nowhere to be seen. More than likely they ended up on the other side of the alien monument from us.

A panicked female voice fills my ears suddenly as the omni-tool on my left arm lights up. “Shuttle Two, come in! We need evac at the monolith! Repeat, we need emergency extraction _now_!”

I raise my arm slightly, out of habit more than anything, and speak into it—well, into the communicator in my helmet. “Cora? What happened?”

“There’s no time!” she answers. “Just get to this nav-point as fast as you can!” A moment later, a navigational marker pops into existence off to the side on my HUD, somewhere behind the peak rising beside us, with a label indicating it’s several kilometres away.

Worry fills me, and I hasten to the shuttle. “Spinning the shuttle up now,” I tell her, motioning to Greer through the cockpit windshield that he should be doing exactly that. “ETA four, five minutes tops!”

Silence fills the channel for a moment as I hurriedly enter the craft, slinging my rifle onto my back as I do. I slam the door release button, and the hatch closes behind me, followed by the rumble of the engines coming online. “Make it three,” Cora finally says. “Hurry!” She ends the connection.

“You heard the Lieutenant,” I call up to Greer. “SAM, you got the nav-point?”

“Affirmative, Ryder,” is the AI’s monotone reply.

“Alright, good to go. Hang on to something,” Greer calls back, mere seconds before lifting the shuttle off the ground far faster than when I had been in his seat. Hayes manages to stay where she was when I initially left the shuttle, back leaning against a seat near the port door, while Harry has to hold on to Fisher’s right knee to keep his leg from going anywhere. I barely manage to catch myself on the edge of the aft framing of the starboard door.

“Ryder, lend a hand, wouldja?” Harry says once the craft more or less stabilizes. “Need a second pair of hands to help set the bone.”

“What about Hayes?” The craft rocks beneath me as we hit a thermal.

“I’m fine,” she says, sounding very much not fine. “Carlyle’s hands might be full soon. Stabilize Fisher.” She stifles a cough, and I wince.

I make my way towards the rear of the shuttle where the men are. “What do you need me to do?”

The doctor barely spares me a glance, instead gesturing at Fisher’s leg where it’s dangling off the edge of a seat. “Help me get the greaves off. He’s got a displaced transverse fracture. Nothing breaking skin, but you’ll still have to be careful. The nerve blockers I gave him will only dull the pain right now.”

“Got it.” Harry starts unbuckling the clasps around Fisher’s knee while I stoop to go to work on the ones around his calf, going as fast as I dare while trying to be gentle.

“Just rip the damn thing off already,” Fisher grunts after a few seconds of fumbling. I scowl up at him, then finish with the last buckle and lift the greave away, letting it fall to the side. The craft rumbles slightly for a moment, and the doctor and I reflexively brace Fisher.

When the shaking subsides, Harry hands me a small package labelled ‘Thermoplastic’ and sets his hands on either side of Greer’s calf. “Get that open and pull out a few strips.” He looks at the soldier with a clinical eye. “This shouldn’t hurt too much, but, well…” He squeezes his hands together, eliciting a _pop_ from Fisher’s leg and a “Fuck!” from his mouth. The doctor turns to me expectantly and I hold out the end of the strip of the material, which he quickly snags and wraps around the area he just set, spooling it out as he does so. Once he’s satisfied that the first wrap will stay in place, he takes the small box from me and begins to wind it snugly around the leg. All in all, the majority of the field aid takes roughly only a minute.

“This’ll hold till we can get you fixed up on the Hyperion, but for now it’ll allow the leg to breathe while keeping it secure.” Carlyle severs the wrapping from the spool and secures the end to the rest of the cast. “Just, don’t move your leg much.”

Fisher stares at him. “Doc, I can barely even feel anything below my thigh at this point thanks to those painkillers, let alone move anything. My leg’s not going anywhere.”

“Good.”

“Approaching the nav-point,” Greer announces. “Carlyle, you and Ryder are on standby.”

The shuttle shakes once again as I stand, though it subsides almost as soon as it starts, and I quickly make my way up to the cockpit. I watch out the windshield as we approach one of the large monoliths, then continue flying past it. Tendrils of dark blueish energy twist skyward from the top of the structure, and smoke wafts out of an entrance halfway up the cliff-facing side of it, blue and red sparks interspersed among the grey obscurity. A number of containers dot the platform in front of the entrance, but nothing that moves. No bodies in white armour. Apprehension twists in my gut.

“How much farther?” I ask, not looking away from the alien structure as Greer banks around and begins to descend.

“Almost there.” The monolith climb past us. “Away team, this is Shuttle One, closing in on your position.”

“About fucking time!” Liam nearly shouts over comms. “We’ve got wounded down here!”

“Beginning our descent,” Greer responds coolly. I grip the top of his seat.

“Shit,” the Lieutenant whispers, then, louder, “Move! She’s going into cardiac arrest!”

My right hand grips Greer’s seat tighter. _Please let us get to her in time._ I thump the back of the pilot’s seat. “Can’t this thing go any faster?”

“Not if we want a repeat of Shuttle Two,” Greer grits out, even as our own shuttle pulls G’s. The ground rushes up outside the viewports, then is claimed by swirling smoke. “We’re coming in hot, Harper. Ryder, Doc, stand by for retrieval, port side.”

I head to the back of the shuttle to join Harry where he’s kneeling over an open crate and pulling out supplies. The craft slows suddenly, nearly forcing me to my knees as gravity catches up with us.

“Grab that litter for me,” the doctor requests a moment later. He points to a spot on the wall in front of him where a stretcher hangs folded in a shallow recess apparently made to hold it. I move forward and take it down just as the craft jolts to a stop. Without a word, Harry and I both rush out the port doors as they open, bringing in a gust of wind and smoke as the pressure equalizes.

The scene we step out into has to be something out of a nightmare; surely nothing like this could ever happen in real life.

Several metres ahead of us, visible through thinning smoke, are the bodies of the away team—though only two are upright, and their distinctive armour betrays them as Cora and Liam. Lying inert on the ground in front of them is a body in standard Initiative armour…but wearing a black helmet. To the side lies a discarded standard Initiative helmet, the visor all but missing save for a few jagged shards around the rim. And there, laying unmoving on his side a short distance from her, is our father, helmetless.

Lifeless.

 _No. No, no no no no, no!_ I stumble forward, nearly collapsing to my knees. _This, this can’t be happening! Not dad! Not Sara!_

“Ryder! Move it!” Harry’s helmet appears in front of me; his voice seems distant, the only thing I can hear, and his helmet has a faint glow to it. The sensation of motion soon encompasses me. The ground feels hard through my boots, and the grip I now realize the doctor has on my free arm is even harder. I mutely let him pull me forward; it’s the only thing I can do right now. Before I can even process what’s happening, I’m kneeling at my sister’s side, across from Cora.

She looks up at me. Her lips move, but the only sound I hear is my own shaky breaths echoing in my helmet. I close my eyes and shake my head, then look back at the Lieutenant. The world snaps back into focus with a crash of light and sound. “What?”

“I said, help me get her onto the stretcher! Quickly!”

“Uh, right.” I hastily unfold the nearly forgotten stretcher and lay it out on the ground directly beside Sara’s body.

“You get her legs, I’ll get her shoulders,” Cora says, already maneuvering her hands under my sister’s right side. I lean over the stretcher to get my own hands under her legs, then look back up at her. “Ready?” she asks.

I nod.

“On three. One, two…” I adjust my position slightly. “Three!” In tandem, we lift Sara ever so slightly off the ground— _fuck_ she’s heavy—and slide her towards me and onto the stretcher. There’s the faintest shimmer of blue energy visible around Cora’s arms as she lets go, then she’s standing up and moving to the head of the stretcher. I quickly move around to Sara’s feet, and the two of us stoop to grab the handles and lift. My sister’s still heavy, but at least now she doesn’t feel like dead weight.

Cora and I all but run the few metres back to the shuttle bearing Sara between us. “SAM, what’s her status?” Cora asks as we near the craft, glancing back over her shoulder at my sister as she does.

“Heart rate is dropping rapidly, and brain activity is irregular. She is barely breathing,” the AI responds. “I advise beginning cardiopulmonary resuscitation immediately.”

We climb into the shuttle at last. “What about dad?” I ask SAM. I look back out the way we came and spy Liam and Harry a few metres away, half carrying, half dragging my father between them in much the same way Fisher was. Behind me, I hear Cora rooting through Harry’s medical cache.

For once, SAM doesn’t respond immediately, and that’s all the answer I need. My throat tightens and my vision blurs slightly as tears brim at the corners of my eyes.

“I am sorry, Kate.”

I choke back a sob. For the first time in my life, I feel truly alone.

“Kate!” Cora snaps, startling me. “Get it together, before we have to bury _two_ Ryders today!” I blink back tears as I tear my gaze away from the three outside. Cora is frantically searching through a nearby crate, tossing various tubes and packages aside in her impatience. “Carlyle, where’s that fucking AED?”

“Forward bulkhead, starboard side,” he says. “Here, I’ll get it.” The interior of the shuttle darkens slightly as the doors behind me close. Harry brushes past me and goes to retrieve the equipment in question.

“Greer, get us in the air!” Cora yells. “Kate, help me get Sara out of her armour, we may need to resuscitate. SAM, status?”

Gravity presses my shoulders down as the shuttle lurches into the air. I drop to my knees and begin unbuckling the clasps at the bottom of Sara’s chestpiece, while Cora presses the release on the side of Sara’s helmet and then slips it off. My sister’s face comes into view, framed by her extravehicular protective head covering, or EPHC; she looks deathly pale, and in pain.

“Blood pressure is currently eighty one over forty six and dropping. Heart rate is…erratic,” SAM intones. “Her body is going into shock. She needs a shot of adrenaline and oxygen, and chest compressions if necessary.”

I take my helmet off and set it to the side. “How can you be this clinical?” I demand of the artificial intelligence.

Cora undoes the clasp on her side of Sara’s chestpiece. “Now isn’t the time! Just help me get this off her!” She looks up as she fastens her fingers around one edge of the chest plate. “Carlyle, get that adrenaline dose over here!” She looks back at me then, and I repeat her motions, grabbing the edges of the chest and back plates. With the bottom straps undone and out of the way, it’s a fairly simple matter to just slide the armour up and over Sara’s head, then discard it to the side. She groans quietly when we slide it past her shoulders but otherwise doesn’t stir, and I’m unsure whether to view that as a blessing or a curse.

Once done, the Lieutenant turns around and fumbles with a clear plastic apparatus, then brings a portable automatic oxygen mask into view and places it over Sara’s mouth and nose. Her breath faintly mists the inside of the mask, but only just. “I need you to hold this here,” Cora tells me. As soon as I take hold of the mask, she pops her own helmet off and tosses it away, and then she’s working on the zipper at the base of Sara’s throat, yanking it down her torso and exposing the compression shirt beneath to halfway down her abdomen. “Carlyle, is that adrenal shot ready?”

“Almost,” Harry says as kneels beside her. He too has discarded his helmet, and holds a small syringe tightly in his right hand. “I need to inject it into her deltoid, and sterilize the area first.”

“Right.” Cora pulls the left shoulder of Sara’s suit away from the arm and quickly rolls the stretchy sleeve of the compression shirt up to her shoulder, then scoots over to give him room to work. A large splotch of purple is already visible on her forearm.

“If you guys are doing anything delicate back there, best do it quick,” Greer calls from the cockpit. “Leaving the atmosphere in less than a minute. Gonna be a bit of a bumpy ride.”

“This’ll only take a moment,” the doctor mutters as he swabs the side of Sara’s shoulder with a small wipe that smells strongly of rubbing alcohol. Satisfied, he sets the used wipe on a section of the suit still covering most of my sister’s torso, then positions the syringe in his right hand to hover over the newly sterilized area and jabs the end of the needle deep through the skin. He slowly depresses the plunger of the syringe, and the small amount of liquid within is gradually pushed through the needle and into Sara. After a few seconds, Harry carefully withdraws the syringe and squeezes a drop of medi-gel over the injection site from the same tube I’d seen him using for Hayes.

“There.” He sits back slightly. “That should do it. Hopefully. SAM, status?”

“Stand by. Continue to stand by.” For a brief moment, I picture the artificial intelligence encountering a loading screen, and almost laugh aloud at the thought. “Blood pressure is currently one hundred four over seventy one and rising. Heart rate is stabilizing at sixty one beats per minute. Continue providing oxygen until directed otherwise.”

The three of us let out a collective sigh of relief, and my heart warms when I see the inside of the oxygen mask misting thickly at regular intervals. “She’s going to live,” I breathe.

“We’re not in the clear yet,” Harry says, catching my eye.

I look away, not wanting to think about the implications of what he said. My gaze settles on my sister’s pained face—not even conscious, and her features are ever so slightly contorted in agony. Her chest rises ever so slightly with each breath. _What did she go through to end up like this? What happened to them?_ I look over at dad then, and… For quite possibly the first time ever, he seems content. His eyes are closed, no creases at the corners, and he’s wearing an actual, genuine smile. _Only in death could he finally find peace._

“I’m gonna go check on the others,” Cora says aloud after a moment. “Carlyle, if you need anything—”

The doctor waves a dismissive hand in her direction. “Yeah yeah, I’ll holler if something comes up.”

Cora looks Sara over one more time, then sets her jaw, stands, and moves to the rear of the shuttle. Liam soon comes to fill the Lieutenant’s space and stands beside Harry.

“How’s she doin’?”

“She’s hanging on,” the doctor responds. He runs his scanner over Sara once more, then nods to himself, apparently satisfied with what he sees.

Liam crosses his arms. “She’s a Ryder. ‘Course she is.”

“Not all us Ryders are hardy,” I mutter, more to myself than anyone, but Liam scoffs.

“Bull. I’ve seen you in action. You can handle yourself pretty damn well, ‘specially for bein’ the youngest on the team.” He pauses, then tilts his head and regards me with renewed interest. “Shit, how old are you anyway?”

 _Eh, what the hell._ “Twenty. And Sara’s only twenty two.”

Liam squints at me for a moment. “You’re joking.” I purse my lips, which is all the reply he needs. “You’re…not joking. Holy shit, you’re practically still a kid!” He waves his arms emphatically.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” I say. “I shouldn’t even be here.”

“Maybe.” Harry shrugs. “But if you weren’t, we’d have been in a lot worse shape down there. Hell, you took down almost half of those things practically single-handedly.”

I squirm under his gaze and look down at the oxygen mask in my left hand. “Yeah,” is all I say. If either of them says anything in response, it’s lost to me. The only thing I’m aware of is my hand, the mask, my sister’s pale face, and the low rumble of the engines; the rest of the world is distant, muted, as if on a different plane of existence. Sara breathes steadily, if shallowly, and I soon find my own breaths syncing with hers. It’s peaceful, in a way—

_Wait. Pale?_

The world snaps back into focus. “Uh, Harry?” In my peripheral, I see the doctor turn to face me, though my own gaze still rests on my sister. “She hasn’t lost any blood, has she?”

“Not the last time I checked, no,” he says. He activates his scanner and sweeps it over Sara. “Why?”

“Well, why else would she look this pale?”

That gets his attention, and Cora’s. Harry looks up at me from his omni, looks at Sara’s face, then back at the readout on his screen, as Cora rushes to my side. He brings his right hand up to grasp Sara’s exposed wrist, still looking at the screen. “The adrenaline shouldn’t have worn off that fast.”

“I do not believe that is the issue, doctor,” SAM says.

“Care to enlighten us?” I bristle. Cora shoots me a look, then turns to Sara. I notice her clasp my sister’s right hand with both of hers.

Harry doesn’t appear to notice the exchange, seemingly too absorbed in the data he’s seeing. “Pulse is weakening.” He turns to Liam, then continues in a louder voice, “Tell the Ark to prep med-bay.”

Liam rushes up to the cockpit, and the remaining three of us focus our attentions on my sister, whose eyes flutter. “Ryder? Sara, stay with us! C’mon!” the doctor pleads as her eyes fully close. “SAM, what’s happening?”

“Sara’s cardiovascular and nervous systems are declining. Her body is beginning to shut down.”

SAM’s words echo loudly in my ears, seeming to grow in volume with each repetition. _Her body is beginning to shut down. Declining. Shutting down._

_Dying._

“Is there anything we can do?” Cora implores in a strained voice.

“I am afraid not, Lieutenant Harper. Sara requires proper medical attention that cannot be provided from your shuttle.” SAM pauses briefly. “Medical staff have been alerted and will be waiting in the hangar bay on your arrival. They can transport Ryder to the nearest medical bay.”

I look out the window of the starboard door at the bleakness of space. Small tendrils of dark, twisting energy are barely visible against the backdrop of foreign stars. “How- how long till we get there?” I ask.

“Less than a minute,” Greer calls from the cockpit. “Beginning approach vector now.”

“Hang in there, sis,” I whisper. “Almost there. Just hold on a little longer.” I glance down at the oxygen mask; despite the air it’s supposed to be pumping into my sister’s lungs, only the barest bit seems to make its way through, and her chest is only just rising with each breath.

We stay like that, Cora and I, just sitting by Sara’s side as Greer pilots us back to safety—hoping against hope that her heart will continue beating, even if only just. Sooner than I expected, the hum of the engines changes in pitch, and not long after is the hazy starscape of Andromeda replaced by the cold, lifeless walls of the Hyperion’s docking bay.

The shuttle comes to rest a moment later, and when the port and starboard doors both slide open, we’re greeted by a flood of light and the dim outlines of a number of people. As my eyes adjust and the figures come into focus, so too do their uniforms; almost every single one of them is in the red-and-white uniform of a medical officer, and several of them are carrying what I assume must be medical supplies.

Then Harry is barking orders, and they descend like flies on our shuttle. Somewhere in the jumble of bodies I see Hayes and Fisher being carried out. I find myself being pulled out of the shuttle by someone, and soon after, I watch as Sara is carried out in the stretcher, flanked on both sides by Doctor Carlyle and…an Asari? I blink several times in quick succession and look back at the entourage. _What the hell is an Asari doing on the human ark?_

Without any conscious thought, I move to fall in step with them, to follow my sister, but the hand apparently still fastened around my forearm tightens, and I’m jerked to a halt. I look down at the offending hand, then follow the arm up to meet Cora’s gaze, now sans her EPHC.

“Let me go, Harper,” I hiss.

Her grip only tightens, and she holds my gaze. “Let them do their job.”

I tug harder. “My _sister_ is _dying_ in there!”

“I know,” she says softly, following it up with a sigh. “There’s nothing either of us could do. We’d only be in the way.”

I gesture with my free arm towards the others as they disappear down a corridor. “So, what, _Liam_ can go with _my_ sister, but _I_ can’t?”

“Kosta’s crisis response, you’re not. He’s lived and trained for this sort of thing.” Cora sighs again, then squeezes my arm. “Get some rest, clear your head. Maybe go check on Scott. I’ll let you know if anything happens.” She gives me an indecipherable look. “That’s an order, not a suggestion.”

There’s nothing I can say to her now will change matters, so I swallow my words around the lump in my throat and nod.

“Nobody could have expected any of what’s happened today to occur. _Nobody._ Losing Alec, and nearly Sara and Scott…I can barely imagine what this is like for you.” She pauses, then, surprisingly, draws me into her embrace. I stiffen in surprise; I never expected the Lieutenant to be this maternal. Or, at all, really. Strands of her hair tickle my nose, and it’s not nearly as comfortable with our armour still on, but…it’s the first time today I’ve felt safe, and I let myself relax ever so slightly in her arms. “Just, know that I’m here for you,” she murmurs near my ear.

“It…means a lot,” I manage. My eyes begin to itch, and I reach one gloved hand up to rub them.

Cora releases me, then steps back and gives me a small smile. “Good. Now, go get cleaned up. You’ve earned a break. Hell, we all have.”

With that, she turns on her heel and leaves, heading in the direction of the tram station. The hard soles of her boots click audibly against the metal flooring as she walks, echoing around the now otherwise empty chamber. After a long moment, she’s through a door set into the side of the hangar, leaving me alone to my thoughts.

In a daze, I make my own way to the tram, mechanically placing one heavy foot in front of the other until I’m inside the thing. My fingers flit over the screen of my omni-tool. The doors behind me close a second later, and within moments I’m on my way to…who knows where in this godforsaken ship.

“What do I do, mom?” I whisper. “I’ve already lost you, and now dad.” A deep, shuddering breath fills my lungs. “I can’t lose her, can’t lose Scott.”

Tears well up in the corners of my eyes and threaten to spill. It takes everything in me to not collapse to the floor then and there.

“I’m lost without them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so yeah that was definitely a reference at the end of the chapter, and you should totally go listen to "I Was Lost Without You" by Sam Hulick now


	6. Decompression

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having time after the mission to think turns out to not be so good a thing for Kate, and things start coming to a head once Sara wakes up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait guys, but I promise it's worth it.

Steam hangs heavy in the still air. It seeps into my skin, fills my lungs, each deep breath a reminder that I’m here, in Andromeda, alive.

I push that thought away before it leads someplace darker.

Warm water streams down me in small rivulets, over my shoulders and back, down my legs, until it reaches the previously-stark white floor where it finally swirls down the drain. The pressure of the water is nice against my skin, and I try to focus on that. The sensation of each droplet pounding over me, a swarm of needling warmth that radiates from just above my shoulder blades, a welcome feeling to my numb body as the hot water washes over it.

I lean my forearm against the wall in front of me and sag forward to rest against it. Dripping locks of hair hang around my face as I stare vacantly at the point where floor meets wall. In the relative solitude afforded by the shower, I’m alone with my thoughts for the first time since waking up in Andromeda.

_What the hell do we do now?_

Five hours. Not even awake for five hours in a new galaxy, and everything has already gone spectacularly to shit.

An image of a hulking alien standing over me, the barrel of its large gun spitting a torrent of plasma, flashes before my eyes, and I instinctively squeeze them shut. It takes a long moment and several deep breaths to calm my suddenly racing heart. _That fight is over_ , I tell myself. Nails dig painfully into the palm of my left hand, and it serves to keep me grounded in the here and now.

 _Yeah. Here_ , I think ruefully. The Hyperion, drifting aimlessly among foreign stars, lost at sea. The Hyperion, which should have been making preparations for colonization on Habitat-7, our ‘Golden World,’ not running away from what turned out to be an almost literal hellhole.

 _And now_. 600 odd years into the future, and the farthest anyone has ever been from home. Nearly everything and everyone we knew and loved, gone, long dead. And no sign of anyone else in Heleus, save for a race of aliens who shoot first and ask questions never.

 _We’re the aliens here_ , I remind myself with a shake of the head. Droplets of water flick free from the ends of my hair, calling back to attention the fact that I’m still standing under the shower.

“You stay under there any longer and people’ll think you’ve turned into a Salarian.” Greer’s unexpected voice breaks the previously still air of the room, and I all but jump in surprise at his unexpected presence.

I jerk my head from where it was resting against my arm and look over my shoulder to scan the room for the source of the noise. Several paces away and already moving towards a shower several stalls down is Greer, shirtless, with a plain white towel wrapped around his waist. Already, the steam permeating the room is settling on the dark skin of his chest, giving it an almost oiled look and highlighting his pectorals and subtle abs. I avert my gaze hastily and cover myself with my hands, ardently thanking the architects for building walls to separate the stalls. Even if they don’t quite rise up to chest height.

Greer laughs at that as he steps under his shower. “Relax, I don’t bite. Didn’t really take you for the modest one,” he says over the sound of the water.

“Just, not really used to communal showers,” I reply.

“Weren’t you Alliance? A marine or something?”

“Engineering corps, non-com. Slightly better facilities.” Facilities that I wish I could revisit now.

“But you still went through Basic though, yeah? Would’ve had them there.”

I shiver involuntarily at the memory his words bring up, then squeeze out some body wash from a bottle sitting on the divider to my right and thoroughly lather myself with it. “Yes. A while ago.”

Greer chuckles from across the room. “Yeah, I guess you could say six hundred years is ‘a while’.”

The corner of my mouth twitches upward by the tiniest bit, accompanied by a snort. It all feels…familiar. And for a moment, things feel normal.

But only a moment.

I continue washing away the grime of the mission, the dried sweat, the dust that managed to work its way into my suit, and the patch of dried blood on the inside of my left bicep from where that beast thing had managed to hook its claws under my armour and leave a mark. Nobody even noticed it until after we’d gotten back to the Hyperion; everyone was focused on Sara, I was hopped up on adrenaline, and there wasn’t even a visible tear in the suit. Which was good—it meant its claws didn’t actually directly pierce skin, and so had no chance of infecting me with anything. Or poisoning me. Who knows what those creatures were capable of. I didn’t even notice until I took my suit off, and by then it had already clotted. It’ll scar for sure.

New bruises of various shapes, sizes, and colours dot my tawny skin, and those are just the ones I can see. I have no idea where any of them came from, but damn does it hurt to move now that the adrenaline has worn off. Muscles I didn’t even know existed were so sore that it had actually taken effort to peel myself out of my hardsuit. The hot water has thankfully eased the discomfort somewhat, the heat soaking deliciously deep into my bones and muscles to soothe the aches within, though not nearly enough.

“Hey, do you know if we have to ration the water or anything?” Once again, Greer shatters the tranquillity that had settled around us like the steam that swirls in lazy currents.

“Do you really think anyone would give a shit after the day we’ve had,” I deadpan.

“Good point.”

He lapses into silence once more, and I’m privately thankful for it. Talking takes too much effort right now, and frankly feels just plain weird doing so in the showers with nobody else around. I came here to escape as much as to get clean. Escape from what, I have no idea, but escaped I have into the warm embrace of the hot water.

Greer does have a point though, in a way. I have been standing here for quite a while, and my legs are beginning to ache from the combined strain of staying upright and the day catching up to me. I’m about as physically clean as I can get without scouring a few layers of skin away. I briefly consider grabbing a razor and shaving my legs, but just as quickly dismiss the thought. It’s not like I’ll be wearing anything shorter than my ankles for a while, plus, nobody would really give a shit. We’re pioneers for fucks sake. Nobody’ll care.

With no small amount of reluctance and a great desire to not part with the comforting envelopment of heat, I reach up and turn the shower off, cutting off the stream of water pouring over me. Cold air hits my wet skin almost immediately, a stark contrast to the previous warmth. A shiver runs up my spine. I reach out to the end of the partition where a towel hangs and take it to begin the oh so fun process of drying off.

That done, and after a close call where I slipped on the wet floor and nearly lost my balance, I wrap the dry side of the towel around myself and leave the stall feeling marginally better than when I had entered it however many minutes ago. The first thing I put on when I reach my fresh Initiative-brand shipwear clothes is my omni-tool, sliding the bracelet-like device onto my left wrist and bringing up the display. One new message from Cora awaits my attention.

 

**Sara is stable and recovering. SAM did something to save her.**

**-Harper**

 

I stare in silence at the words on the screen for a long moment. A hundred and one emotions whirl within me, unsure how or to what I should even be reacting. After a moment, one thought manages to distinguish itself from the others.

_She’s alive, but at what cost now?_

It takes me a long moment to realize that I’ve started crying, and it’s only when I feel a tear drip from my chin that I do. I hurriedly brush the heel of my right palm over my eyes to ward off the inevitable. My eyes still burn with unshed tears, but no longer water. Have to keep it together. Have to stay strong.

I repeat the thought to myself as I dress, trying to will the words to become true, but a part of me still knows that they won’t change anything. I ignore that part anyways.

* * *

The cryo-bay that I step out of the tram into is not the same bay that we had left several hours ago. Where before had been the chaos of a ship rocked by catastrophe, now there is a sort of tentative calm to the place. The crew—those who had been awake when it happened and most likely several who were not—has had time to start repairs to the damaged systems and clear some of the debris away. The first indication of this is that the hallway leading from the tram to the cryo-bay proper is noticeably better-looking than when we left; loose cables that had been lying limp on the floor then have been reattached to their proper housing, crates that had been turned over are now stacked neatly together, and even the air feels cleaner.

As I walk through the hall toward the bay, I pass by an abandoned yet active datapad lying on a console close to the wall on my right, the faint glow of the screen drawing my eyes to it. Curiosity gets the better of me, and I pause to pick it up and skim the readout on the screen.

 

**AUTOMATED LOGS**

**REPORT RUN:2819, Identifier QPA-Z**

 

****Year/Event****

**[2185] Departure.procedures: confirmed**

**[2185] Stasis.lockdown.engaged: confirmed**

**[2186] Anomalous.comm.sensor.readings: report logged**

**[2347] Trajectory.drift.detected: report logged**

**[2347] Trajectory.course.correction: confirmed**

**[2411] Arks Paarcheo/Leusinia/Natanus: condition green**

**[2497] Sensor.arry.fault.detected: report logged**

**[2497] Sensor.arry.fault.repair: FAILED**

**[2819] Trajectory.destination: confirmed**

**[2819] Destination.location.proximity: confirmed**

**[2819] Stasis.revival.engaged: confirmed**

**[2819] Nexus/Arks Paarchero/Leusinia/Natanus: not detected**

**[2819] Sensor.fault#JSKL*L &^MD:"LASF4@JK F**

**[2819] ERROR**

 

Well. That certainly confirmed a few things that I would have really not liked confirmed yet. Never mind the fact that it’s now been 634 years since we left the Milky Way galaxy behind us; that information is trivial and more or less a known compared to the rest of the logs. Failed sensor array repairs halfway across dark space, no sign of the Nexus or other arks, more failures that can most likely be attributed to the energy cloud we ran into, and…whatever it was the Hyperion detected in 2186. The only transmissions I can imagine the Hyperion picking up on a couple thousand light years or so outside the Milky Way are from the Citadel races or other space-faring species, like the Quarians or even the Geth. That it was logged as “anomalous” is interesting in itself, and more so when you take into account our distance from the galactic disk. Whatever we pinged—or whatever pinged us—was an unknown, and loud. Maybe a new species just entering its space age, sending out its first “Hello!” into the cosmos.

The thought brings a small smile to my face. Maybe, if we can figure out how to establish contact with everyone back home, we could learn all about the newest aliens on the galactic—no, _intergalactic_ stage.

I set the datapad back and continue on my way. The doors at the end of the hall open automatically at my approach, opening out into the large, open chamber between me and the cryo-bay itself. Like the hallway now behind me, the atmosphere feels much less frenetic than it had mere hours ago. The conduits that flank the steps leading down to the bay no longer smoke and spark. The engineers attending them seem to merely be affirming that everything isn’t in danger of failing now. What’s most surprising to me, though, is that people are simply just walking around, passing through the main area on their way to do whatever it is they’re doing; and none of them move with the haste of earlier.

After what happened to us down on the planet, the relative tranquility of the place is a little jarring and unnerving.

The doors to the cryo-bay slide open as I draw near, and low voices from inside filter out. There are more people in the bay than last time, more new faces woken up to meet the new galaxy with a smile. No doubt they’d soon find out the crushing reality of what that entails.

I find Scott near the back wall of the room, right where he was when we left. Dents and electrical scorch marks mar the surface of his stasis pod, and for a moment, I hesitate. Sara said that something happened and that Scott was in a coma because of it, though she conveniently left out what had happened. I flag down the nearest technician and ask him as much, hoping the man was awake at the time.

“Well, when he hit…whatever it was we hit, it knocked out gravity in here, and probably a couple more systems. That, coupled with the reset, interrupted his revival procedure, and SAM’s connection to his implant was… suspended.” He carries on before I can reply, saying, “But his vitals are strong. For now, we’re keeping him in a low-level coma. Let him regain consciousness naturally.”

“But he _will_ wake up, right?”

“Eventually, yes.” The man’s gaze softens. “It shouldn’t be very long. He might even be up before we get our first outpost set up. Oh, speaking of, you’re on the Pathfinder team, right? Heard you guys had your first planet-side mission today. How’d that go?”

I shake my head slowly and glance down.

“I see. I uh, guess I’ll leave you to it then.” And with that he leaves me be, striding briskly away to attend to someone else fresh out of the freezer.

My own feet take me closer to my brother’s stasis pod, and I look down at it with a heavy heart. The thin window above where his head lays is completely frosted over, preventing any attempts to actually see in, to see _him._  I trail the fingers of my right hand along the edge of the pod. Cool metal lays unyielding beneath them, and were it not for the reason why it was still cold, I might have found it somewhat refreshing. Instead, I can only focus on the damage I see and feel.

“I wish you were here,” I whisper. “You’d know what to do.” A sigh escapes me as I lean back to sort of sit against the edge of the pod. “You always know what to do.”

I can almost hear him, imagine him replying to me. _‘Someone has to watch out for you two.’_

“I think Cora’ll be picking up the slack while you sleep in.”

_‘She must be thrilled.’_

A small smile slowly spreads across my face. “Heh, you have no idea.”

_‘And you’re just gonna leave it at that? Throw me a bone here.’_

“Well, she’s not quite as much of a mediator as you. She’s a soldier though. Pretty level headed, good in a fight, and probably a stronger biotic than both you and Sara combined. You’d like her.”

_‘Now this I gotta see.’_

I pat the surface of the pod. “Sooner you wake up, the sooner you can see her in action.” The smile drops from my face almost as soon as it appeared. “Assuming we even get out there again, after today.”

_‘Why? What happened?’_

“Well, we went down to our ‘golden world’ today, see if it was as habitable as it appeared six hundred years ago.” I take a deep breath and let it out with a rush of air. “Murphy’s Law. Anything that could have gone wrong today, did. We met our first Andromeda aliens already, but—” I glance down at the fading cut on my left arm. “They weren’t friendly. At all. And that was after the disaster that was just getting down to the surface. Lost one shuttle and the pilot, nearly lost Sara…”

The words die on my lips as the reality of the situation begins to finally set in.

We traveled two and a half _million_ light years for over half a millennium to find a new home, and our Pathfinder, the one who’s supposed to lead us there, dies on the very first day of that search. Our fearless leader, my _dad_ , dead, because he sacrificed himself to save my older sister. My sister, who very nearly died herself, on multiple occasions. My older brother, stuck in a fucking _coma_ because of a _malfunction_ of all things, blissfully ignorant of the turmoil around him. And here I am, holding a conversation with him in my head as a coping mechanism.

No sign of the other arks. No home for our own. No going back. No Pathfinder. No _family_ , for all intents and purposes.

No hope.

It’s like something has snapped inside me. Tears that have been held at bay for so long suddenly become too much to hold back any more. Thoughts that I’ve brushed away throughout the day surge to the front of my mind, and a sob escapes me as the tears do. They brim in the corners of my eyes, then spill over and obscure my vision when they can no longer be contained. Burning streaks are left in their wake as the hot tears stream down my cheeks.

“Oh, Scott,” I whimper. My throat tightens as the tears continue unchecked; I feel as if being squeezed, everything too tight to get a proper breath in. _This must have been how Sara, how Dad felt when—_

Another sob. I sink down to the cold floor, back against the pod, and draw my knees into my chest—the only comfort I have is my own embrace as I curl further into myself. “I miss you,” I sob. “I need you. Sara needs you. It’s, it’s not the same without you.”

Tears continue to drip down my face as I lay my head on crossed arms that rest on my knees. Sobs wrack my body for a while, gradually quieting in volume if not in tremors, though for how long I cannot say. Eventually, a hand comes to rest on my left shoulder. I slowly look up into concerned grey eyes.

“Harry?”

The doctor stoops down to my eye level and gives me a sad smile. “You should get some rest, kiddo. You’ve had a long day.”

I blink blearily at him. “So have you,” I croak, throat still somewhat raw.

The corners of his eyes crinkle slightly. “You need sleep more than I do.” He looks past me at the damaged pod containing my comatose brother. “There’s nothing you can do for now except make sure you’re ready for whatever’s next. We’ll take care of him.”

“And Sara?”

“She’s fine now, just resting.” Harry gives me a meaningful look, though one filled with kindness. “Something you should do too.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “How can you just tell me to sleep at a time like this?”

“Because I’m your doctor and I know what’s best for you. Now c’mon, let’s get you up.” He stands, offering me a hand that I slowly take. When I do, he more or less pulls me upright, and my legs protest at the sudden movement after their recent, more cramped arrangements. “You gonna be good to make it to your quarters alright?”

“No, doc, you don’t need to send an armed escort with me. I know how to get there just fine on my own.”

Harry holds his hands up in mock defense. “Just making sure. Never know what cryo’ll do to one’s memory.”

I wave the wrist with my omni-tool in front of him. “I think I’ll manage. I _am_ on the Pathfinder team after all.”

“Good to know you haven’t lost your Ryder charm,” the doctor sighs.

* * *

“Dad!”

I wake with a start and bolt upright, chest heaving. Wide eyes dart around a dark room while shaking hands grip clammy sheets beneath me.

It takes a moment to get my bearings, and much longer to calm my racing heart and slow my breathing. The room is familiar to to me, even in the dim lighting; a cross between officer’s quarters and crew quarters at first glance, it contains five sets of bunks, each nestled along the two walls to the side of the door. Space that would be occupied by a sixth bunk is instead filled with the entrance to a small washroom. The wall across from the entryway is devoted to a few terminals and a small kitchenette, and a circular table sits in the middle of the room. Free space is rare; almost every square centimetre of the room—the Pathfinder team quarters, I recall now—is used for something or other. Display screens, storage cabinets, and lockers are much in evidence, though most all of them remain idle or unopened by their owners at this point.

Despite knowing now that I’m safe in my bunk on board the Hyperion, I can’t shake away the dread and horror I felt in the nightmare I’ve just woken from, even as the memory of it begins to fade. Images of my family dying before my eyes linger as awareness creeps in—Scott, dying in his sleep, wasted away to nothing; Mom, fading away to nothingness in her hospital bed, her sickness completely overtaking her and reducing her to a feeble shell of the woman she once was; Sara and Dad, gasping for air that isn’t there, choking to death on the planet we were supposed to call home, while lightning and smoke swirl around them. And then the giant alien from before, its gun spitting torrents of plasma at me even as I ran from it to get to my family. No matter how fast I ran, how hard I pumped my legs, the hail of death crept ever closer. Everywhere I turned, I saw death. The shots shredded my family before me even as they suffered other fates, until my father was the only one left standing—a smile on his face and a hand outstretched towards me, beckoning me to him.

Then he too was gone, leaving me in the sudden emptiness, alone.

“It was just a dream,” I reassure myself between deep breaths. “Just a dream.”

 _‘But was it really only a dream?’_ A voice whispers in the back of my mind. _‘Half your family is dead now, and the other half are in ambiguous states of existence. You’re an orphan now, marooned in a strange galaxy; no home, no way to go back, and now no family or even a single shred of hope left. There’s nothing left for you now.’_

I clutch the thin sheets in my fists as I try to push the thoughts out of my head. When that doesn’t work, I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and hop down to the floor. I take a moment to work the stiffness out of my neck and shoulder before activating the overhead lights in the room.

A buzz on my wrist directs my attention to the omni-tool that I forgot to take off before I crawled into my bunk, though when I bring the screen up it’s only a ship-wide message from Captain Dunn more or less detailing the conclusion of our trip down to Habitat-7. The timestamp on the message gives me pause.

“SAM? How long was I out?” I ask the ever-present AI in my head.

SAM’s response comes from my omni almost before I even finish voicing the question. “You were asleep for two hours, sixteen minutes and forty-three seconds, Kate.”

“Very…precise,” I mumble.

“My primary function is to monitor the Pathfinder team’s vitals, both in and outside the field. I am required to be precise in order to fulfil that function.” The AI has an almost indignant tone to his voice. _His voice? Its voice? Do artificial intelligences even have genders? SAM sure_ sounds _like a guy._

I slowly cross to the washroom and enter, activating the light within and standing at the sink. “If I didn’t know any better, SAM, I’d say you were miffed.”

“What do you mean, ‘If I didn’t know any better’?”

I rest my hands on the sides of the sink and sigh. “No offence, but I’m too tired to have a talk about existential and emotional context with an AI right now.”

The mirror above the sink shows just how tired I am when I look into it. Puffy, bloodshot eyes that can barely focus on my visage stare vacantly back at me from above sallow cheeks. Short locks of untamed dark hair stick up from my head in every direction as if a pyjak had briefly taken up residence there. My body cries out for sleep, though after my most recent experience with that, I’m reluctant to return to it. Plus, after sleeping for 634 years, you kind of get sick of it.

In an effort to wake myself up, I turn on the tap and splash some water on my face. The icy liquid certainly shocks me into a slightly more alert state, and it has the added benefit of soothing the dryness around my eyes. When I meet my gaze again, the young woman that stares back at me looks slightly less dead to the world than she did before, slightly more awake. Slightly.

I shake my head slowly, letting the cold water drip down my face. Looking up at the relative mess that is my hair, I grimace. A hairbrush or some gel could probably solve it easily, but it’s just too much effort to try to find one right now, so I settle with wetting my hands again and patting the hair down until it’s more or less back to where it usually is. Problem solved.

 _I’d kill for some eye drops though_. I can scarcely recall the last time the whites of my eyes were this overtaken by blood vessels to the point that the pale blue of my irises stand in such stark contrast to their surroundings. The only other times it’s happened are when I’ve been awake for over 36 hours and hopped up on way too much coffee while working on a prototype or design.

I’m weighing the pros and cons of loading up on a few grams of caffeine when my musing is interrupted by a buzz from my omni, though this time it’s a voice that comes out of it instead of a readout.

“Guys, get to SAM Node!” Liam’s distinctive voice announces. “Ryder’s awake!”

* * *

My legs move almost of their own accord as they take me down the corridors of the Habitation Deck to SAM Node at a brisk jog, and before I know it I’m there, following only a few paces behind Cora as she passes through the doorway.

Blue light emanates from the center of the chamber, where a holographic representation of SAM hovers within a large, glass-like tube, and from thin lighting strips that ring the room. SAM appears as a sort of digital teardrop hanging from the top of its housing, though the physical components that make up the artificial intelligence are hidden from view.

And sitting in front of SAM is my sister, hair in disarray, flanked by Liam and the Asari I’d seen before.

“You’re awake,” I breathe as I draw near, though she doesn’t seem to take notice of either my or Cora’s approach, what with the Asari slowly waving a hand in front of her in much the same way that Dr. Carlyle did when I had just woken up. After a moment of that, Sara’s gaze finally meets my own, and when she registers what she’s looking at, relief flickers over her face. Then her brows furrow in confusion.

“Where’s dad?” She looks from me to Liam, then the Asari and Cora, searching our faces for answers. “Last thing I remember, he—” Her gaze lands on a helmet lying off to the side—Dad’s helmet—and her words peter off.

The four of us gathered around Sara look anywhere but at her with expressions ranging from remorse to sympathy. Nobody wants to say it, but if anything, our silence is more than enough answer for her. Realization gradually dawns on my sister’s face, and she takes a shuddering breath.

I’m the first to speak. “Dad… dad didn’t make it.” The words come out haltingly, and I only look my sister in the eye for a second as I speak them.

“He, saved you,” Cora says softly. “He gave his life for yours.” She places a comforting hand on my shoulder, and I take small comfort in the touch. “I’m so sorry, Sara. I can’t imagine what this is like for you.”

Silence descends upon the chamber, broken only by the low hum of SAM’s processors, as Sara absorbs the Lieutenant’s words.

“The one time he ever shows he cares about me, and it costs him his life,” Sara eventually says.

“He’s always cared about you, about all of us,” I counter. She looks up at me and quirks an eyebrow. “He just, had his own way of showing it.”

Sara snorts.

“I know he could be distant,” Cora says gently. “But he once said that when his time came, he wanted to go out among stars no one had seen before.”

“At least he’s finally with mom again,” I add in a subdued voice.

“And to think, I could have seen her again too,” my sister mutters, more to herself than any of us. A moment passes, and she sits up—really sits up—and looks around. “…What are we doing in SAM node?”

“SAM is now a part of you…” the Asari doctor starts, “in a way we don’t entirely understand. It played havoc with your brain.”

I frown. “Wait, what happened?”

Sara’s brows furrow in equal confusion. “SAM?”

“Your father authorized the transfer of Pathfinder authority to you,” the artificial intelligence states matter-of-factly.

“…Shouldn’t that be Cora?”

“In theory. In reality…” Cora sighs. “You’re the new Pathfinder, Sara.”

I gape at the Lieutenant. Sara, to her credit, is slightly more articulate. “You’re shitting me.”

“What’s the matter? I think you’re up for it,” Liam puts in.

My sister just shakes her head. “That’s easy enough to say, but going out there and doing it? I barely survived that last mission. Hell—” She looks down, and continues in a lower voice, “Technically I didn’t.”

I look around at the others, then at Sara. “There has to be another way. Can’t you just transfer it to Cora now?”

“I don’t think that will be possible,” the Asari responds in a gentle voice. She turns to face Sara. “SAM’s linked to your mind on a deeper level now. Trying to untangle it could kill you.”

Sara throws her hands in the air in frustration. “Great. Fan fucking tastic. Dad makes a decision that’ll affect every single person on this fucking ship and doesn’t stick around to deal with the consequences of his actions. As per fucking usual.”

“He obviously had his reasons,” Cora says. “He wouldn’t have made you Pathfinder without cause.”

“What possible cause could he have? I never trained for this, that was your job!” My sister gestures towards the Lieutenant to emphasize her point, then turns to me. “Hell, _Kate_ would probably make a better Pathfinder than me!”

“What’s done is done,” the blonde woman asserts tightly. “All we can do now is move forward.” She pauses for a breath. “I know this is tough, but… we need to start thinking about the next step. A lot of people are counting on us. On you.”

I sputter. “Are you mad? She just woke up for fucks sake. You can’t just expect her to immediately jump into Dad’s shoes, _especially_ after that mission!”

Cora’s lips draw into a thin line, and the muscles in her neck stand out slightly more than before.

“Is the ark still drifting?” my sister asks after a tense moment of silence.

“That’s the thing,” Liam says. “Whatever your dad did with that tower, it saved the day. Some sort of atmosphere scrubber.”

Cora adds, “The energy cloud thinned out. We’re on our way to the rally point. Should be at the Nexus soon.”  _That, I didn’t know._

“She needs to rest first.” At least the doctor is on her side.

The Lieutenant closes her eyes for a few seconds, then opens them and gives me and the Asari a sharp look. “She has two hours.” She turns her severe gaze on Sara. “We’ll need our _Pathfinder_ for this.”

Then she’s turning and striding away, tipping her head at us to indicate we should go too. Liam and I exchange a look for a moment before he moves to follow her, the Asari close behind him. I take a few resigned steps after them, but stop and turn to my sister.

“I uh, I checked on Scott earlier, while you were…” I purse my lips. “Still no change, but they say he should be awake soon. He’ll pull through. Not the first time he’s ever slept in,” I finish with a half-smile.

Sara nods mutely, gaze not meeting mine. Taking it as a sign to leave her be for now, I start to make my way out of SAM Node. _Harper and I are going to have words._

* * *

Lightning crackles across the spaces between jagged stone spires as they float just above the surface of a desolate planet. On the edge of one cliff in particular sits a towering monolith; the massive structure juts skyward from its position overlooking the vast landscape below it, dark, alien metal gleaming with each flash of illumination in the skies around it. A swirl of dark blue energy hangs over it like a storm cloud, and sporadic lightning drops from above to strike the top of the structure.

A shuttle slowly descends to a platform near the base of the edifice. A side door opens, and out steps a being similar in appearance to that of the bodies that litter a not too distant valley. A short green cloak hangs from the prominently pointed pauldrons, and the carapace on its head forms a sort of halo reaching above it, rather than a helmet.

The being strides down the platform towards the monument. Lightning flashes in the distance, briefly illuminating the scene more. Several of the other beings, the foot soldiers, mill about in the antechamber of the monument. All look up as the newest arrival walks through their midst towards the center of the room. One of the lowly beings—nearly identical to the bodies in the not-so-distant valley—slowly approaches it, holding out a device of some kind towards it in a manner both reverent and hesitant. The device lays across both its hands, conically shaped with four small protrusions from the wide end. Blue light from a series of large triangular runes suspended in the air behind them, set within each other as if in a two-dimensional tesseract, throws its light across the beings. The larger being takes the device in its right hand, then gently raises it into the air to hover before them. It spins momentarily before flying a distance behind the two.

The larger takes measured steps towards the rune, then stops. It gazes up at the glowing shapes with sunken, pale eyes that stare out from under a bone-like brow; eyes that betray nothing of its inner thoughts. Four small nostrils flare slightly as it breathes, and its mouth remains closed in an almost disapproving line. It blinks slowly. Behind it, the floating device activates a holographic projector, and the being turns to see a translucent alien figure made of orange light standing a pace behind it.

The beings within the room stare at the likeness of the alien who had, through whatever means, activated the ancient monument they now stand in. It bears no resemblance to any sentient life form they’ve encountered in the Heleus cluster, which in itself is odd, but more interestingly, its form is slight and weak looking. There is no visible carapace anywhere on its body, which is instead covered in synthetic armour. Its face is not visible through the rendering of the visor that encompasses most of its head, giving no further indication to what this new species looks like. The only other identifying characteristic it has is an emblem on its chest in an alien script: _N7_. Whatever the significance or meaning of the emblem is, it’s beyond any of them.

The holographic echo of the alien walks towards the rune and stops beside the larger being. It watches as the smaller alien reaches its right arm up, five small fingers splayed outward towards the rune, then, slowly, it imitates the motion with its own, more reasonably three-fingered, hand. It holds the hand there, reaching for the center of the glowing rune, for several long seconds. When nothing happens, the being pulls its hand into its chest and looks at it. Unsatisfied with the lack of answers it finds there, it turns its gaze back to the glowing figure of the alien and gives it a resentful look. Whatever this small alien did to activate the technology of the remnant beings, only it seems to be able to do it.

Displeased with this development, the tall being turns swiftly and sweeps past its underlings towards the entrance of the vault. As the being passes through the transition where light from the system’s sun begins to filter into the vault, its pale eyes shimmer with dark determination.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As I'm sure you noticed, I've started going a bit off-script from BioWare's writing, which I personally think is for the better and which I hope comes across as such. I'll be doing this a lot in the future where in-game events are concerned. Not that I'm saying BW's writing is bad, just that it's written for a different medium and for only so many characters. Anyways, hope you enjoyed the chapter!


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